Rare
by MyMadness
Summary: Can the present be something neither the past or future could? And should it? This is my Anthony. Although I love him dearly, he is prone to getting things backwards. Thinking what should be said when he should say it instead. Or, saying the wrong thing completely. But that's alright. Edith is her own woman now – or trying hard to be – and she doesn't mind driving.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: I am experiencing a neeeeeed to post. I can't really explain. I'll just tell you I have taken a body blow or two in RL and being here (DA-Land) seems a soothing prospect._

_So, I hope you will welcome some Anthony and Edith. It feels rough. Maybe it is their joint nervousness I am picking up on. Or maybe it is me and mine. _

* * *

><p><em>I'm a cripple. I don't need a wife... I need a nurse.<em>

_._

_Dear God_, Edith thought sadly as she replayed the whole of their conversation later. What Anthony had told her had been so blunt and so painfully morose. It had been a very difficult moment. Still, she could pride herself on not having backed down.

He'd made his speech, warned her off, and Edith had replied quite defiantly,_ "If you think I am going to give up on someone who calls me 'lovely'..."_

She had not fought with him over his assessment of things more than that, however. She had sensed the need to drop the subject. Tea with him that afternoon had been a bit tense, but she felt the ease they had shared before the war was there beneath the surface still.

What was she to do now, she wondered. Sir Anthony had made it clear that he was now completely unwilling to renew any romantic attachment. With a strange nervousness, Edith worried Anthony would be unwilling to even see her if she professed any interest in things beyond the most bland social interactions.

There was only one thing she could do, the young woman concluded.

Now that she had met with him again, heard his voice and seen that smile, she could not imagine avoiding him or leaving their meetings to chance. She could, however, quite easily imagine telling him exactly what he wanted to hear. She would assure him that she was not pursuing him.

Oddly enough, Edith wasn't sure if that was true or not. The war had left her confused about a great many things, her previous desire to be well-married being one of them. Perhaps she could see Anthony, socially and alone even, and friendship would be enough.

The man had professed to being unfit to be her husband. And while that set her back, it did not at all derail her, she found. Something must have changed in her, because the future worried her less than the idea that she might not be allowed to spend time with Anthony _now_. Marriage was no longer the goal it had been. Merely being with him – near term – was the thing she suddenly wanted most.

…

So, she resolved to come visit him again within the week.

"Edith!" he greeted her those few days later. And in that one word there was astonishment and worry and fondness. At least, she hoped she could still count on his regarding her a bit fondly. "I am surprised to see you... well, so soon again. Not that it is unwelcome," he added, cautiously.

He is repeating his warning, she thought. What he said was well worded, just haltingly delivered, she noted as she smiled at him. His traits betrayed so much of his sweet nature and made her remember the man he had been to her.

"I don't want you to worry," she began. "About why I'm here, I mean. I promise there are no false hopes on my part. But when I said I would not give up on you, I meant it. We were friends. Lovely friends, or at least I thought we were."

"Of course, of course, we were," he hurriedly assured her.

"Then we can still be friends? You can not stop me wanting to spend time with you. You can, obviously, refuse to see me. But I would still _want_ to see you. Do you understand?"

"No false hope? No machinations?" he asked quite seriously.

"How about a drive and a walk or two? A discussion of whatever you are reading?" she offered as if in substitute.

In silence they regarded each other. And, thank goodness, he was the first to smile, she thought. Better, it was an honest smile.

Edith was no accomplished flirt, which was just as well, she decided. She was well aware of the tricks other women used to gain attention, and she admitted she had little talent for such things. And she knew she needed to avoid even the hint of that if she would get Sir Anthony to allow her to spend time with him again. So, she steadily met his eye with a conscious lack of guile. She left her voice untamed as she asked if they might walk out to the orchard. And she refused to look away or feign a demure blush. But she returned his honest smile.

_We__ are just good together_, she so desperately wanted to tell him. _Friends. We enjoyed our time together. We can again._

As she sat across from him, waiting for his answer, she catalogued the changes to the man. The uneven timbre to his voice when he had greeted her. And the nervous way two fingers were pulling at his suit just now. They were little things, some might say. But they saddened her.

Edith wanted to offer him companionship. He needed it, she believed. She understood him enough to know that Anthony was unused to society's acceptance or easy friendships, and that he was more resigned to being alone now than he ever had been.

And so Edith vowed not to muddy her time with him with anything that might resemble what he so seemed to fear – any angling for a marriage proposal.

Anthony had smiled, but it didn't hold. He shook his head, as she watched him, as if he was pushing away a thought.

He cleared his throat and then forced the words out. "I know you spent the war rehabilitating the wounded... men like me. And I fear you will tell me that they all pulled themselves together and that I can, too."

She sighed as if he'd hurt her. "I will tell you is that I have missed you. _Fiercely_. That I am incredibly happy that you are back. And that I hope we can spend time together again. Under your terms. Just... Please... I want to confess. Or make you understand."

"Understand what, Edith?" he said, softening some.

"You think I am here out of pity or to see you mended, and that would be more noble, perhaps. But I think you would hate it." She paused and he laughed quickly, almost sounding like the man he had been. "So, please consider that I am here, at least in part, because I am selfish." She drew in a steadying breath. "Before the war? Don't you remember how we were? Couldn't you tell how I felt? No one ever seemed to understand me the way you did. Whether it was my regrettable sense of humor or the odd topics that I always brought up. Only you...liked me _as me_."

She seemed lost in a memory for a moment as an embarrassed blush crept across her face. "And I understand that you do not want me to get my hopes up about any sort of romantic future," she continued. "But if I could just have a _little_ of our old times back again... because for me at least... that sort of companionship was not just good. It was rare."

He stepped a bit closer then. And all he said was, "We'd best get our coats." But his smile was back.

For a tired, hollow Anthony Strallan, it was the first time in a very long time that his smile was one he _felt_, rather than just bestowed.

"_It **was** rare," he mentally concurred. "Being with you was rare and lovely." _Those were the words on his lips that he would not say.

/


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Brought to you by a combination of insomnia and the drink MONSTER. Right as I tried to post this yesterday, my machine locked up. I am on a little laptop now that I am not usually allowed to play with. But then people around here know that it pays to keep the person doing the laundry happy._

_This is a short chapter. I thought about continuing with the story as part of this chapter, but this felt very much like a good place to end things... for the moment._

_Please join me in hoping my magical, elf-like husband manages to salvage the hard drive on the beast that went white screen yesterday. That's where the most recent versions of my stories are. I really do not want to type it all back in from the print out I made yesterday. _

_My thanks again to dancesabove for the inspired eyeballs._

* * *

><p>Edith and Anthony walked the path from his front door toward the orchard.<p>

She had decided to be comfortable with their declaration that there would be no courting, and that let her march alongside of him unworried for once about what he might think of her every inelegant action. It left her more open to the moment, she thought, rather than forcing her to worry about some future.

And in _this_ moment, what she worried about was this man.

Edith looked at her friend with a hidden, sideways glance meant to assess him more fully.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye for a hundred yards or so. It was their slower pace, so different from when they used to walk, that caught her notice first. And she noted, quite silently, that it was she who was shortening her strides today. It had always been he years earlier, with his longer legs, who had waited for her.

So much had changed. _Too much_, she thought with sympathy.

She had seen that his suit seemed just a tad too large. It had not been made that way, she guessed. It was more likely that the man had failed to gain back the weight the war had taken from him.

She had then a thought that she freely allowed was a strange one. And she did not know why she had conjured it. But something in Anthony showed her that there was the damage that war inflicted on each person. And _then_ there was the damage we allowed to be inflicted, that we allowed to settle, on ourselves.

Edith need not allow what _he_ had, however. A confidence she could not explain came to her just then.

"Sir Anthony?" she said, full-voiced.

"Hmmm," he replied with distraction. "Yes?"

"It will be so good."

The enigmatic statement hung there. At least for him it did. Edith had moved on already. Figuratively. Literally. With a half-skip in her step like a much younger woman–one who had never been the unsure, awkward Edith Crawley.

She turned and smiled at him, just knowing that she was right. It could be... _so good_.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: My thanks again to dancesabove. My apologies for those errors I felt compelled to introduce later. :)_

_I love these two as they work at what to do. I hope you like them, too._ _Edith is a determined woman with a whole new outlook on life. _ _ I think we can trust her to introduce some romance to the relationship or create a scandal trying._

* * *

><p>From the little Edith had gleaned of the true dealings between the Crawley servants Anna and Bates, she'd concluded that a certain theme seemed to play out no matter what class was involved. Men, <em>good<em> men, worried that they were not what a woman needed or deserved. But this chivalry had to give way. It was unfair to the men, of course. But it also robbed those women who were neither blind to life's imperfections nor afraid of them.

Somehow, Anna seemed to have brought her man around. God help them all, it had been years in the doing, and Edith was feeling far less patient. Not for selfish reasons, for once, she told herself. More, it was because she could not stand to see the way Anthony treated himself. She hated how he suffered under his own treatment.

In the days after their early visits, there were tea times spent together. Even a drive, with Edith the one behind the wheel. All of it was, of course, initiated by the young woman. But all of it was resisted less and less by Sir Anthony. At least, Edith _wanted_ to believe that.

There was the slightest increase in intimacy, she noted. There was even a growing comfort for both of them with the state of his arm. There was the afternoon that he ran out of cutting remarks to disparage how little he could use the appendage. And in the crooked smile that met her in that moment, Edith decided it was a sign that Anthony just might allow her to accept what he would not. He might allow that she could make peace with his infirmity.

… … …

When Edith visited a few days later, she paused at the sideboard in his sitting room. Her hand moved to rest on the wooden box that she knew held his cards. "We could..." she began.

"I don't play anymore. Well, I _can't_," he stressed, too harshly.

"We used to so enjoy it," she insisted too quickly. Edith regretted her words even as she said them.

Silence greeted her misstep. And there was the smallest warning look from him before he walked to the far side of the room to deflect further conversation. Still, all was not hopeless, Edith believed. A mere two weeks ago, the man would have said far more to belittle himself.

.. … … …

"I brought these," Edith said to him a week later, as she pulled two wooden curiosities from her bag. "I hope you don't mind."

They were card holders – "assistive devices" – that had been left at Downton from when the wounded had recuperated there. Edith wasn't sure if Anthony had ever run across this sort of thing when he had been in hospital, but she did not want to mention them in that regard.

"Holding your own cards is very, very passé. Come. Give it a try. We won't play for money," she pretended to chide him, as if the prospect of losing to her would be his objection. He sat down with her at last, and she tried hard not to smile excessively. She dealt the cards. And then she steadied his card holder while he placed his hand in it. Edith put her cards into a contraption as well.

The game itself was unremarkable. Having him tease her over his having won, twice, was not. She thought on it for days. She grinned about it in the hours when she should have been sleeping. That look on his face at the end of their game was one that had belonged to a younger Anthony Strallan. One full of life. And delightfully handsome.

…..

He was no longer surprised when she showed up at his house. And she had long since stopped apologizing upon her arrival; she gave up insisting that she had conveniently 'been out nearby'. But it was a rueful look that greeted her as she was shown to his study three days later.

"Edith. You must have other causes."

She was not insulted; she wasn't even that worried. After all, he called her 'Edith' now when they were alone; there was that warmth and almost easy familiarity. And there was a touch of a smirk to him at the moment that showed he knew it was hopeless to try to discourage her or her visits.

She teased him then, but felt a bit nervous over being so bold. "Oh, you think I am here to dote over you? I'm worried about your car. Cars need to be driven, you know. Let me see it. Let me drive it about. We should go out to the garage," she suggested, with more bravado than she felt.

"I never go out there anymore," he said distractedly, averting his eyes.

"Did I tell you I had learned to drive a tractor?" she asked, stepping closer and looking unabashedly impish.

He could not help but smile at her, now, at her exuberance. At the sheer beauty in her enthusiasm. "Why does this not surprise me?"

"We could walk about. See what's what out there. How about the sheds, too?" she wanted to know.

"You want to look at _all _the machinery?" he asked with disbelief.

"I would like to walk about, yes. And why not to the garage?" she said with a conspiratorial whisper. "The longer we stay here, the more your butler hovers, and the man looks at me as if I were a mouse in the pantry."

"I am sorry about that. He may have become... protective of me. When it comes to people..."

"I understand," she tried. "There are times when I would rather not deal with people. But _you and I_... we have always done so well together."

He didn't answer her with words. He merely nodded to acknowledge the truth in what she said. Then he pulled open the door so that they could indulge her desire to see the outbuildings.

There had been changes in the weeks since they become reacquainted. There was no reservation in the delight she felt at walking beside him now. In part, it was because she enjoyed how easy it now felt to be truly alone with him. Also, it was the beautiful difference it made to his manner when he was outside and acting the master of his estate.

When she stole a glance at him today and measured his stride with hers, she found him more fit and more confident than he had seemed a month ago. There was color to his cheeks and a faint smile at the edges of his mouth.

How could he think it was pity that brought her here when he was as appealing as this?

But it was he who remarked on the difference to _her_ as their steps crunched across the gravel.

"You've changed, Edith," he said, as if it were a most delightful discovery. "It is not that I didn't enjoy my time with you before. You know I did. But now, you are so... so wonderfully alive. So self-assured."

"It may have been the war, I suppose," she told him quietly. "It changed us all."

He paused as he stood aside to let her enter the garage first.

"Only _you_ for the better," he answered as she squeezed by.

She sensed her chance then. She turned and stood to face him. "Does it hurt?"

"The arm? No. Not really. It just isn't worth anything," he said with a touch of bitterness.

"What does your doctor say?" she pressed.

"That I should move it as much as I can. Change position. And avoid any hope of ever using it properly," he tried to joke.

"But you have some range of motion. I have seen you with it bent and straight. And..."

"You sound like a nurse..." he teased.

"I'm sorry. I..."

"No, I don't mind."

Unconsciously, she ran light fingers over his sleeve. "Do you have feeling through here? In the hand?"

"Why?" he wondered, shaking his head.

"I want to know if you would feel it, but it wouldn't hurt, if I touched you here... to try to get your attention. Or..."

The way her fingers traveled down his arm began to remind him of more intimate days, and he took a step backward to break their contact.

"You promised," he faltered, as if both saddened and surprised.

"Yes. And I meant it. I promise. I will not entertain any thoughts of a future with you... a married future," she amended, awkwardly. "But I do still want to know if I might touch you... or even take your better elbow when we walk," she said, reaching for it.

She felt the heat rise in her face, because she knew how horribly apparent she had suddenly made it that this was no longer about his injury.

And she was sure that he must know what she was truly asking. This ghastly, thudding silence was now about what sort of physical familiarities they might agree could pass between them.

She was rarely this foolish, and she hated herself for the slip.

He was quiet so long, it worried her. She bit her lip with uncharacteristic nervousness, wondering how she had ever managed to say and do such things.

Her mind did not repent. It kept echoing everything she had been thinking of late._ I want that closeness that we shared years ago. I miss it. Touching you. Having you hold my hand. Even for all its innocence. __**That**_ was what she wanted to admit as she stood there, head down.

"Edith?" he wondered, with his kind intensity.

"I miss the way we were, I suppose." She sighed. "No, there is no 'suppose' about it," she then allowed. "I wish we were different together. I miss feeling like a woman when I am with you." And with her eyes on his hands, he knew what she was admitting. That she wanted his touch, his regard. That even without the hope of any future relationship, she would welcome a return to what little they had shared.

For his part, he simply didn't know what to do with that knowledge. Hers had been a brave and sad sort of pronouncement. Perhaps it was a reaction to the strange situation the war had left them all in. But Anthony refused to consider what she'd said as untoward, because this was Edith. His dear, lost Edith.

And because he had had the same unhelpful thoughts.

Just how weak and foolish was he, he wondered, that he could stand here in front of her, wanting to give her exactly what she was asking for? Because he knew he should be severing this relationship for her sake.

God help him, he _wanted_ to touch her. His fingertips fairly itched with it. Not because he was in love with her, although that could happen, he knew, far too easily.

Anthony wanted to caress and console and encourage this woman who seemed to have become too used to the shadows that her sisters cast. He wanted her to know he did not, would not, ever forget that she was a woman. She should never feel that she was invisible, or anything less than the others were.

But he didn't touch her. Despite the deepening pull he felt, he didn't even move any closer. And he hated himself for not being able to find the words to reassure her.

All at once she jammed her hands into the pockets of her light coat as if to signal an end to the awkward conversation, or as if to signal he was safe from any continued advances.

As she felt a jittery sort of panic take her, she turned and walked for the nearest bit of farm equipment, determined to pretend that it suddenly occupied her interest.

She heard him come up behind her. "I don't know what to say."

"Well, I can easily sum up. I am most assuredly an idiot."

"No. Edith. Dear Edith," he whispered near her ear. "You continue to be lovely to me. But I will still hope you find the right man, someone who can see those same things in you… and make you happy. If spending time with me is preventing you from..."

"Do you mind spending time with me?" she interrupted.

"Quite the opposite," he confessed.

"I am happy enough with the present. Please, don't be one more person telling me to focus on the future."

"That is what your family tells you?"

She merely nodded.

He sighed. "We can enjoy our friendship. But it will still only be a matter of time before your father involves himself. You have to know that, Edith. How your parents have let you come out to see me as often as you have, I don't understand."

Her laugh was humorless. "Most of the time, no one knows where I go when I come to see you. Well, that is, they think I go somewhere else."

"Oh, dear. And you've hidden how frequently you visit because you know they would not approve?"

"I know they would not _understand_. If they knew you were set against any sort of… permanence, well, they would think I was being embarrassingly foolish and forward in continuing to come here."

"Or they might just see this as I do, Edith. That I am not at all suitable given my... circumstances."

She didn't want to admit that he might be right about how her family viewed him. But she had considered that they might think him unsuitable now. There was something in her mother's manner – her grandmother's, too – whenever Edith mentioned Sir Anthony.

But she would worry about that later. Right now she needed to extricate herself from this garage and the damning conversation it had somehow invoked. "We should walk, probably. Just walk. Maybe the fresh air would do me good. Help me forget all that folly and drivel."

Once outside, he half-turned to offer her his elbow. It was the first time in so long that he had done such a thing. And she worried that it was all because of her ridiculous, self-pitying confession.

Still she took his arm. "Thank you," she told him. "You are very kind. And I am..."

"You," he interrupted gently, "are a dear woman. But I shall insist that we both face that you are only on loan to me."

… … …

A/N: I do not know if these card holders were actually invented back then. Let's just say Edith came up with them. But we had them at the place I worked.


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: Finally, I have managed to get a chapter up! I've also reread the first chapter of this and decided I hate it. It is a bit improved now, I think. You may not see a difference.**_

_**I thank dancesabove and selmak for the edits and ideas. Errors are mine. ** _

_**Go, Edith. She might not be sure exactly what she wants, but I get the feeling she will not be deterred.**  
><em>

… … …

That evening before bed, Edith asked her mother to invite Anthony out to Downton.

He wouldn't want to come, her mother explained. "Not for a meal. There are all those moments that really require two hands. He would be too embarrassed, and we shouldn't put him through that." Cora paused then and looked remarkably sincere as she told her daughter, "Allow him his pride, dear."

While Edith did now concede that a meal was absolutely the wrong thing to invite him for, she began to see as well that her mother had relegated Sir Anthony to a bin of things for which she had no use.

And Edith was incensed.

The next morning, the younger woman insisted he be invited to tea. There shouldn't be an objection. Tea was a safer prospect, she assured her mother.

Not safe enough. Her mother had heard all she needed to connect the dots.

"Where is it you really go, Edith, when you tell us you are visiting the church or the hospital?" Cora both asked and accused. "Have you been seeing Sir Anthony more often than you have let on?"

Edith's lack of answer was all that her mother needed.

/ / /

"You've been away," Anthony said cautiously, when she reappeared in his sitting room almost three weeks later.

But Edith was still smarting over her near-forced removal from Downton. "I am heartened that someone noticed."

"Of course I noticed. I telephoned to ask after you. I was told you were visiting relatives."

"I am sorry, Anthony. I should not take my moods out on you. You just have no idea what it means to be the hapless daughter past any chance…" She would not say it. She would not voice how she was viewed for being unmarried, at this advanced age.

He stood near her now in front of the settee, and he risked a comforting hand to her arm. "This is my fault," he said sadly. "They sent you off to get you away from me."

"More to get me away from being myself, if that makes any sense," she sighed, and she sat at last.

"How was London?" he inquired bravely.

"Three widowers, two veterans, and a young man who really must still qualify as a child," she answered dryly. To her this was not a non-sequitur, as the purpose of the trip, everyone knew, had been to introduce her to eligible men.

He nodded, understanding completely... and becoming ridiculously jealous. Bristling now and feeling thoroughly childish, he paced rather than sit by her.

"I dined with them all. Danced with them all. It was sincerely horrid. And I apologize for complaining to you like a spoiled brat," she added, in a tired and breathless sort of manner. "Please. Please tell me we can go for a drive. I'd like to sit out by that copse of trees. You know the one."

...

Once there, they sat on the running board and looked out over the escarpment. Usually she enjoyed this, their good silences spent shoulder-to-shoulder.

Today, however, she thought she would burst with what she felt for him. How foolish her parents had been to send her off to London. The comparison she now had in her head of those vapid strangers, viewed against this brilliant and dear man, made her emotions nearly unmanageable.

Somehow, to her parents, all those others were better men. They were vetted. Preferable, she supposed, because their limbs worked, and they were closer to her age.

"I should go to America," she blurted out. "Go to university there. Something." But she was fishing, she suspected. "Tell me not to go."

He at least waited before he spoke, and managed to look a bit conflicted. Edith hoped that was not a polite contrivance. Certainly, the two of them were beyond that falsity.

"You would love America. You should go to school. Study something mad and adventurous," he told her finally. He paused then and a wicked smile slowly took over his face. "They have the most amazing tractors over there – in the states. You really would love it."

"Oh, Anthony. Be serious."

"I can't stand to see you this miserable. Truly. So, maybe I am being serious. Because you need something. And it should not be me."

But as she looked into his eyes, those sweet blue, intelligent eyes, she wondered how she could ever be happy. Whether she was away and without him, or here and not truly with him, it was all of it painfully incomplete.

It would be a quiet, incomplete-feeling day for Edith. But a better one than she had spent in those weeks away from him.

...

She came into his study a week later to see him struggling with writing in his ledgers. His frustration was bitterly apparent.

"I would offer to help," she told him quietly. "I would do the entries for you. But I know you hate taking any sort of assistance."

"I do," he said with a tight, unhappy smile.

"Just today. Just let me write the last few numbers in for you today, so that we can get an earlier start for Ripon."

And he let her. In fact, Anthony found it was not as horrible to take her help as he had feared. What it was, he told himself, was foolishly self-indulgent. His capitulation came with its rewards. He got to stand near her, to lean over her and show her where the numbers went. He was treated to the sight of her chewing her lip as she totaled the columns. He closed his eyes as the honey smell of her hair reached him.

Edith looked up and caught him smiling.

"You are laughing at me," she accused, with her own happy look.

He only managed his reply once he had cleared his throat nervously. "I am not."

"Well, good," she countered.

"Finished?" he asked hopelessly. "We should go."

… …

On the drive to Ripon, he turned to her. "So, they let you out," he said, meaning her family.

"I volunteered to pick up some things in Ripon."

"And you mentioned I would be along to help," he teased.

"Of course, I didn't."

"You are going to get me shot again, you realize," he said wryly. "Your father. Pistols at dawn. I should mind. Why is it I don't?"

She was too smart to press her luck and answer that. In fact, she gifted him a smile over what was possibly the wittiest bit of flirting she had ever received.

He was so different in that moment. Younger. More confident. He continued to sit turned half toward her, seeming more relaxed and more… well, masculine than she remembered him ever being. It all provoked more feelings in her. Sweet, romantic thoughts of kissing him, she admitted to herself. A mad desire to be pulled into his lap.

She stole one more look at him as she drove, and oh, she knew she was blushing then. With a nervous sigh, she refocused on the road.

/

They sat together on a bench in Ripon. It was lovely to be in public and together, they both were thinking. Just being the small distance away from their homes removed so many constraints and made this possible. She risked laying a hand to his sleeve for just a moment when she knew what she had to say.

"I'm not going to hide anything from you. My parents have made me promise not to shut out any…"

"Any young men," he supplied, as levelly as he could.

"There is a new doctor helping Clarkson with something, and they have had him to dinner a few times," she shrugged. "My grandmother is behind it, no doubt. I met this man, James Grant, in London. He was at the hospital where Granny has some connections on the board. Suddenly, he is here." Edith looked uncomfortable. "I don't want to talk about it. But I wanted you to know."

She took his elbow as they walked for the car. It was just for that short space, but she did it. She wanted Anthony to see it was hopeless for her to be paired up with that fellow Grant. And hopeless because she only wanted him.

/

"You've been busy. I've scarcely seen you since Ripon two weeks ago." He turned his head a bit to hide his blush. He was sure he had managed to sound sadly needy.

"My schedule is not always my own."

He knew what that meant. "Your family has been entertaining Dr. Grant?"

"Yes," she said quietly.

"You needn't sound apologetic, Edith." He smiled then, to sell her this notion that he did not mind who she saw. "I hope you do find the right man."

"Let's pretend that I have, shall we? And then we can get back to being friends." The words came out more tired than anything else.

He nodded, and motioned to her usual place on his settee.

"I've been thinking," she began as she took up her seat.

"A dangerous prospect," he teased. "Well, at least when you do, it usually is for me."

She pretended to punish him with a look and then continued. "You might get a typewriter, rather than struggle with writing with your left hand."

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Is this all because of that business with the ledgers? Really, I don't know that I can manage to work a typewriter. Not with one hand. Please, don't..."

"Well, there are all sorts. And..." The sudden look on her face made it obvious she was preparing an admission. "I've brought office machine catalogues with me," she told him. "You would not believe how many different kinds there are. You could find one that has the return bar on the left and the roller adjustment... well, _thing_ on the left," she said, excitedly.

"I am your project," he grumbled.

"You are my _friend_," she emphasized. "A very dear and wonderful friend. And I am just an odd sort of person who enjoys a little puzzle to solve. Now, sit with me and look through these catalogues, and let's see what we find."

"You should be picking a university, not a typewriter," he complained. Still, he settled on his couch close to her.

"I'll pick your typewriter, and you can pick where I go to university."

He feigned a stern look and turned his attention to the drawings and descriptions in the catalog she held.

"A ledger cannot be rolled through a typewriter," he pointed out.

"You can get new ledgers... with removable sheets," she countered.

"True." And his face showed that he was being swayed.

"And the typewriter will allow you to send letters. Notes, perhaps?"

"I find the telephone works fine," he pointed out.

"You can't send a sonnet over the telephone," she said, risking some sly humor. "A woman likes to get a sonnet. Once in her life. Even from a man who's a dead-end."

He didn't know what to do with that bit of... well, perhaps he finally had an outright flirtation on her part. And perhaps he should mind. But then, it had been he who had flirted so shamelessly on their last outing.

Besides, Edith struck him as confident. As happy and settled. There was no desperate undercurrent in her manner, as was so common in a woman angling for a proposal. It wouldn't hurt anything for him to remember (as she had requested) that she was a woman who did not mind being noticed and appreciated. It was not strictly proper, the way they behaved. But as long as they kept things from becoming physical...

She caught him staring at her. "I was only teasing. I'm sorry," she told him. "I didn't mean to shock you."

But the truth was that he was reminding himself of a previous realization. As fond as he was of the old Edith, he found this new woman to be refreshing and an unexpected joy. She was challenging to his middle-aged complacency in one moment, and so dangerously easy to be with in the next.

And sight unseen, it was apparent to Anthony Strallan that Dr. Grant did not deserve her.

… … …


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews and the 'adds.' I really do thrive (quite shamelessly) on the attention. I hope you like where this is going. I am still not sure how this story will end. Edith seems to have some ideas, but I am afraid to turn her loose. ** _

_**Errors remain mine. Dancesabove is the one with the talented eyeballs. Thanks, Selmak. I'm not even sure if you remember discussing these plot ideas weeks ago...  
><strong>_

… … …

In the end he selected a typewriter with tightly arranged keys that seemed best suited to one-handed operation. Edith was insistent that she be there when it arrived, because she was the one who had come up with the idea to devise a foot pedal to operate the shift key. She had seen a different model in one of her catalogues that used a foot pedal to operate the line-return function. "Why couldn't the heavy shift key be operated similarly?" she had wanted to know.

She loved to watch him as he began to ponder the question. He gave himself over to the idea, spouting on about a separate table with a bar that ran through. She smiled. He was so completely... _beautiful_ like this.

"What is it?" he asked, when he stopped long enough to see her expression.

"Nothing. Just..." _I love you so much, especially when I see you taking on the world_, she thought.

"Just?" he insisted.

"I... adore you is all... when you are this enthralled with something."

He turned away from her declaration. Not that the way he felt about her was something he was any good at dismissing.

/ / / / /

On that day at Downton, when Anthony was finally invited for tea with the family, Edith asked him out to their garages to see the new car and the one that had broken down.

"Edith!" her grandmother complained. "You are going to take our guest out to the garage? You'll be walking about in coveralls next, telling us you've repaired an engine." Edith wondered at the objection. She believed it more a warning that she should not be spending time alone with Anthony Strallan than anything else. She had been indulged enough that they had agreed to have him to tea, she was being told.

But God knows, Edith had had about enough of everyone's rules and expectations. She had been the good daughter. Stayed out of trouble. Well, almost. There was the letter to the embassy. She would never be forgiven for that.

And she had not been quite helpful enough to simply get herself married off to someone suitable. But she had caused no scandal. Not run off with one of the servants.

"Have you seen the new car, Granny? Really. You should come out with us," Edith deftly replied. She turned to Anthony and pretended that it was the destination that was the objection, not her escaping with their guest for a few unchaperoned minutes. "But maybe my grandmother's right. If you'd rather, we could go down to the gardens instead, Sir Anthony."

There was the sound of the dowager's cane tip impacting the floor then. But only Edith with her well-practiced ears for disapproval heard it.

…..

"A new car?" Anthony queried as they walked out across the yard. He was wondering at the extravagance in such times, but was too polite to remark about it, she knew.

"My father has given up on the old one being reliable. It breaks down all the time now."

"Ah," Anthony quipped. "I know the feeling."

"Really, Anthony!" she admonished, with a bite to her tone and a familiarity that, perversely, warmed him.

"Sorry." And he nodded at her in acknowledgement. "Bad habit."

"Indeed, it is," she told him with a quirk to her lips.

Once into the garage, he made for the car that stood with its bonnet propped open. He peeked inside as he asked her, "So, can it be fixed? Or is it set for the scrap heap?"

There was something in him that wanted to continue the comparison. This wreck was here in front of him, and he wanted to see something that was past its usefulness. He wanted Edith to get used to the idea of giving up on something that was broken.

He knew, however, from the sound of her sigh, that Edith wanted to see something that needed only work and some loving care.

"We'll figure out how to keep it running," she told him.

"The reality is that some things just cannot be fixed, Edith," he said, as he poked at the wiring. "I never thought you such the blind optimist. I thought you more practical."

Neither of them was foolish enough to think he was talking about the car.

"I thought you had given up this old objection," she accused, more gently than she felt. She blamed this visit. It had been a mistake to let her mother and grandmother near him. Their feelings about him were never spoken, but were nonetheless evident. "Oh, Anthony. It wouldn't hurt me to give up on the car, eventually. Well, not much," she tried to joke, as she came to stand close beside him. "But there are things on which I will not give up. Is that impractical of me? Well, I'm sorry if it is. It can't be helped."

She only smiled at first as she waited for him to reply.

"Don't be angry with me, Edith," was all he said at last. The small sigh she gave him then seemed to signal that he had the forgiveness he needed.

Too easily then, she felt herself responding to him; to the way a lock of his hair had fallen forward as he leaned in again to inspect the engine. After these weeks that they had spent together, after the past they had known before the war, she refused to reign herself in.

She wanted to touch him. Him. Not the cloth of his coat, but the man. _It would be harmless,_ she told herself. _Well, more likely improper. And possibly idiotic_, her brain allowed. But he had promised her there was no romantic future for them, so how could it matter? There was nothing to lose.

While he was distracted with the car's engine, she reached over and pushed at his hair just briefly. The effect was immediate. Just not what she would have wanted. His hand stilled where it had just moved some of the wiring. He froze, apparently not believing that she had petted at him.

After a long silence, she told him, "I don't know why I did that. Because really, I always loved it when that bit of your hair misbehaved."

She could try to gloss over it, but it was no use. They both knew that it was quite obviously the most intimate thing that had passed between them in years.

"Edith..." he began, as he straightened up.

"And you will tell me, as you always do," she said, in an effort to beat him to the punch, "that I should have better things to do with my time than dote on you."

"Because I am _not_ what you need. Your attentions would be better applied to a man who is not a cripple," he said, mercilessly.

"What you refuse to understand is that so many other people are far worse crippled... because they are mean-tempered, little people inside." _And I am forced to live with them_, she thought. "I would rather be with you," she finished with a blush.

She had been so bold just now, and he hadn't reprimanded her. Not really. She stepped a little closer and moved to touch his cheek. But he gently intercepted her hand.

"Edith? I've allowed this to happen. And I apologize. We have flirted and acted the couple when we have been alone, but it _must_ stop. I don't know if you are hoping I can be persuaded to begin something with you..."

"Even though I would welcome any return of the affection I show you, I won't go back on my promise that I expect no future from you."

He shook his head as if he could not understand.

Had the war changed the world and the two of them that much? Because Edith was agreeing to give up on a future, but wanting _something_ now.

"I am not immune to what you are doing. And I will ask you not to be a temptation when things are hopeless," he tried to explain.

"The future is hopeless, that is what you have said. And I have told you that should not prevent something – just _something_ between us here in the present."

"I will not agree to toy with you, Edith."

"You are not toying with me. We are agreed you do not wish to begin anything. We are agreed I am not to expect that of you. But does that mean that you must end what little we do have?"

"You know it means we should," he said lowly, his breath catching.

"Why?"

"What?"

She had rattled him, she realized, and although she regretted any discomfort she caused this man, his declaration that she was a temptation had left her feeling at least a little empowered.

"Why, Anthony?" she repeated with determination. "Why must we do as we have always been told? We are neither of us married. We are risking nothing but our own hearts. For years the war worked at taking everything it could from all of us. Individually. Collectively. It was just one loss after another. Why would I willingly give up anything again? Why would you?"

They were both silent, and it was not uncomfortable. More… necessary, as if each had so much to consider.

Her gaze drifted from his eyes to his lips. And she wanted so badly to kiss him, to be kissed by him. And it all seemed so sadly impossible.

_You've kissed me before, _she thought with an ache._ Was it so horrible?_

Edith wondered if he ever remembered the few sweet, chaste intimacies they had shared before the he likely wouldn't ever kiss her again, she knew. Back then, it had all been a prelude to a proposal. A testing of the waters.

And now...

"We should go back inside," he said, sounding far away. "I will thank your mother for having me, and I will be going."

Before they stepped from the shadow of the door and into the open, she touched his arm to stop him.

"Are you done with me then? Would you rather I just left for America or...?" she needed to know.

"No. No," he insisted, too quickly. _Why is it,_ he had to ask himself, _that I am terrified to lose you, when I have no right to keep you? _"But I worry, Edith." _Because for more than a moment, everything you said about not giving this up made perfect sense._

Her hand travelled from his arm to brush at the fingers on his uninjured arm. She held her breath, sure that he would let her touch just pass from him. But he didn't. He caught her hand and squeezed before he let her go. The gesture was so fleeting, she could be tempted to believe it had never happened. But it had happened.

_It truly had_, she thought with a sad smile.

/


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N: Thank you all for the lovely reviews and all of the 'adds.' I want so badly to do right by this pair.**_

_**Again I thank Selmak and dancesabove for ideas and edits.**_

* * *

><p>A week later, the typewriter arrived. Anthony had misgivings about telephoning Edith to invite her over to see it, but he knew she would not forgive him if he did not. She left Downton within an hour of his call; still, he was on the floor and under his new table by the time she walked into the study. A mechanically inclined boy from his stable, Joseph, was similarly half out of view beside him.<p>

"We debated on having a spring return, or a clip for the shoe," Anthony called up from the floor.

"Or a rocker, like a sewing machine," his assistant chimed in.

Anthony scooted out as best he could with only the one arm to help him. Joseph stopped his work only a moment, unsure if he should offer to help the man. And Edith, thrilled at the sight of Anthony so engaged, felt emboldened enough to step forward then and take the initiative.

"Will you let me help you? Please," she said softly, as she extended her hand. "We all of us need help with something."

He thought on it... quite obviously, as he sat there. And then finally reached forward with his good hand. Whether it was because he saw the sense in what she had said or because he wished to avoid any embarrassment by arguing things in front of the boy, Edith did not care. She gripped his forearm tightly and he did the same to her.

"Now," she said, as she readied herself. He pulled against her and ably leveraged himself up. She smiled hard, happy at their accomplishment. And enjoying the physicality of it, she did not let go of his hand. She was a lost cause, she knew, in that moment. All she could think is that she could get closer still, quite easily. She could fold herself into his arms, beg him for a kiss if they were only alone.

"What have you decided then?" she asked awkwardly. She cradled his one hand in both of hers now.

"Hmm?" Their actions seemed to have prevented him from staying with the conversation.

"A rocker, the clip or the spring?" she reminded him.

"Um... the spring. For now," came his strangely hushed words.

She had reached to his side and carefully brought his right hand up while he had spoken. All four of their hands were together now, and she stroked the one he called 'useless'.

"I do feel it, you know?" he whispered.

But as the awkwardness stretched on, there was nothing to do but apologize and step back. Which is what they both did, in embarrassed near-unison.

"If you want to give me an hour, sir, I'll have this perfect," Joseph called up from the floor.

…

He gave her the option of going for a walk or a drive, and she steered them towards the garage that held his car.

"Do you miss driving?" she asked as she shifted gears out on a quiet road.

"Oh, not so much," he lied.

She pulled the car over to the side then. "So little that you would give up this chance?" He looked perplexed, and she explained too happily. "You drive. I'll just shift. You'll see. It will work."

He said nothing, nothing in objection. And that was all the encouragement she needed. She climbed out of her seat and made to round the car.

Shaking his head, he did the same.

"It will be great," Edith told him, sounding ridiculously buoyant. She patted him on the shoulder as they passed in front of the bonnet and then made for the passenger side before he could react.

This trial run had them frustrated, yes, but he was able to laugh as well. Finally, they were just working together, no longer having to try at being in synch.

But his good hand refused to cooperate suddenly, when the sound of the clutch catching startled him. Instinct caused his hand to come off the wheel to try to help her shift. Their hands collided, but she just pushed his left arm back to the wheel after giving it a quick squeeze.

He pulled over then and cut the engine.

She knew she needed to control herself. Perhaps she should not have pushed him to drive. Or touched him quite so earnestly. She had squeezed his hand and been too eager. And all of that would worry him, she knew.

"Dear Edith..."

_Don't wait for a lecture on my misplaced affections_, she told herself. _Don't wait for him to dismiss this experiment as a failure._

"That was wonderful! Don't you think we did very well?" she beamed. "We made it through three gears, first time out."

He didn't answer. Instead, Anthony climbed out of the car, obviously not at all himself. And flooded with concern, she followed. He walked away to stand among some trees, as if he needed the cover for his emotions. He was close to shaking, she realized as she caught up with him. As close to anger as she had ever seen him.

"This," he said motioning towards the car with his good arm, "was a lark. It proves nothing. Driving. The typewriter. Playing cards? Why, Edith? Why do you want to fix this when you can't."

She stepped closer and said only his name, in a tone so haunting it almost, almost stilled him. But he needed to say this.

"You don't understand," he ground out, his teeth gritted. "I can't tie my shoes properly. I can't use a knife and fork together. Getting dressed each day is a complete and embarrassing fiasco, even with a valet."

Something close to rage began to bubble up in the normally placid man. But she wasn't afraid. And she offered no ridiculous platitudes. Lord knows, for that he was most profoundly thankful. What she did, quite surprisingly, was insinuate herself into his coat and against his chest. She cast her arms around him, and he was forced to lean against the tree to hold them both up.

"I'm angry," he announced with less venom now. "And ashamed. Because how dare I act like this when so many men lost more? I'm just sick and tired of it all. My dear Edith. I'm so thoroughly fed up with myself. And... I don't blame you for anything you have done. I don't. I'm sorry for what I said."

She was still pressed against him and his arm was wound around her now. As his anger dissipated, he noticed their display finally. The soft warmth of her in general. Her head snugged beneath his chin. There was the feel of hips pressed solidly to his. It wasn't sexual. It was more as if the moment had demanded this completeness and had banished any normal reserve.

They had never, in their few shared intimacies years ago, stood and clung to each other like this. But before, they had never, either of them, needed it so badly or known such desperation. She looked up at him, her eyes full.

Her face was so determined and compelling that he let go of all of his objections, and he met the kiss she seemed to want.

When she responded, signaling that she wanted still more, he gave in further and kissed her hungrily. His breath was still uneven from his pained declarations as he leaned to her again and again.

Raw. Ungoverned. His emotions left him no other way to kiss her. And it was how he _wanted_ to kiss her. Today more so even than years ago. And he realized, with a touch of surprise, that it was how she kissed him in return.

His chest was still heaving when he then cradled her head at his shoulder.

Still he shifted uneasily, as if to force at least the smallest space between them. "Edith? I..." The words were rough, his voice still ragged with feeling and with the kisses.

She couldn't stand that he would regret the way he had kissed her. Because, once cleared of those moments of his worst weakness, he had been the most worthy man she had ever seen.

"Don't," she told him. "Dear God, don't apologize. Not for any of it. Not for what you said. Not for kissing me." She stroked his face. "Please, don't worry that you've offended me."

He nodded. Only nodded.

"You'll stop, I know," she told him as she rose on her toes. "So, you needn't stop just now."

/ / / / / / / / / /

She could only think of Anthony the next morning. But her mother and grandmother had their agenda.

"James will not be here much longer," her mother said firmly. "You should take the time to get to know him better."

"Not this afternoon," Edith insisted. "I promised Sir Anth..."

"Sir Anthony is hopelessly crippled, Edith, and an old man," her mother interrupted.

"A boring one at that," her grandmother added, not quite quietly enough, from her place on the settee.

Edith groaned and moved for the door of the sitting room. Cora followed and caught her by the arm once they'd reached the hallway. Perhaps it was the shock of the confrontation that gave Edith's thoughts a voice.

"He doesn't _kiss_ me like a crippled, boring old man," Edith ground out, as she moved to free herself from her mother's grasp.

"He _kisses_ you?" her mother exclaimed in a measured, punishing voice.

"Once. Just once," Edith admitted as she turned her head to avoid her mother's piercing eyes. "We were driving and... after..." She wouldn't say any more. She would not give them what little she had that was truly just hers and Anthony's.

"And he pressed his advantage with you – out alone?"

"God, no," Edith scoffed. "He ..." She would not relate the torment and pain he had revealed that had led her to wrap her arms around him. And so she only told her mother what happened immediately after. "I couldn't help myself. I can't explain. I just put my arms around him. Kissed him. And he kissed me back."

"How have you, of all people, let things get so thoroughly out of control, Edith?"

"Oh, enough. Please, mother," Edith begged, tiredly.

"Yes. Truly, I think this has been enough."

/


	7. Chapter 7

_**A/N: Thank you for continuing to read. And t_**hank you for all the lovely reviews. They make my day. **_I feel as if support for this couple is really taking off.  
><strong>_

_**I hope this is ready for prime time. The plot thickens considerably here. Wish me luck on maintaining the threads. My thanks to dancesabove.**_

_**Go Team Edith (and James).  
><strong>_

* * *

><p>Edith knew there was no circumventing her mother's or her grandmother's wishes, especially not when the pair was so decidedly working in concert.<p>

The young woman and Cora were standing by the hall telephone now. The dowager countess was impatiently overlooking the proceedings from the doorway.

"Pick it up, Edith," her mother instructed, dully. "Tell Sir Anthony you are sorry to cancel your arrangements, but that your mother has made _quite_ firm plans for you this afternoon."

And when she hesitated, Edith heard her grandmother chime in, "Really, my girl. You make it seem such a crime to have the two of us happy for once. Just an afternoon... "

_But, it was not just an afternoon_, Edith thought as she placed the call. _This was at least the sixth meeting that had been forced upon her and Dr. Grant since he'd been lured here from London. _

He was a nice enough fellow, but just so obviously not someone she would ever expect to end up with. Why couldn't anyone see the plain reality of it?

She winced through the conversation with Anthony, although she worked hard not to let her mother see it. Watched as she was, there was no way to let the dear man know that this change in plans was in no way her idea.

… .. ...

An hour after lunch, she was summoned to the sitting room. "Really," her mother scolded when she found Edith in her bedroom. "You would make me come get you? You knew we were expecting James. He's here already."

"Sorry, Mother, I..."

"Oh, please. No transparent excuses. Just be nice. And we must be quick. There is no telling what your grandmother and father are saying to him just now."

… … ...

Edith was barely holding to the group's conversation. She was too busy thinking of the rushed telephone call that she had been forced through with Anthony, and how he would likely take a cancellation as a sign of regret or second thoughts after the kisses they had shared. Given that she'd had her two minders posted at her side as she conducted the call, there had been no way to let poor Anthony know that her feelings were quite the opposite.

"Lady Edith?" a voice broke through her thoughts.

"Yes. I'm sorry, Doctor. I quite lost my place. What was it we were discussing?"

"I was just asking you if you wanted to walk a bit. I think your mother would be glad to get rid of us for a while before tea."

"A lovely idea," Cora answered for her daughter. "Although I am not trying to be rid of you. I'm just recognizing that you young people would certainly prefer to amuse yourselves."

"Exactly," James echoed.

"Certainly," Edith replied, although she was sorely tempted to roll her eyes. But then, there was no point in offering up any resistance, she had glumly decided.

Once they stood in front of the house, Edith looked at James. "Do you want to walk out to the gardens?"

"Not the _garage,_ Lady Edith?" He was smiling in a boyish rather than rakish fashion.

She looked at him askance.

"We'd best walk on while we talk," he urged. "It might be my imagination, but I could swear we are being watched."

She was still dumbfounded over his comment, but she fell in alongside him.

"What did you mean about the garage?" she asked him, a shade roughly.

"I'm sorry. I overheard your mother talking when I arrived. Just before I was shown into the sitting room. Something about you having a gentleman out for a walk and thinking the garage a suitable destination."

"Oh, dear. I think I'm horribly embarrassed."

"Don't be," James said, still smiling. "It didn't take overhearing that for me to know there is someone else. And we were never very suited somehow—although I'm fond of you. Truly."

"I think I'm even more fond of you now that I know you have such a devious sense of humor," Edith told him. "But, given what you seem to know, why are you keeping up this pretense? You could have told everyone you'd had enough of this assignment with Dr. Clarkson and the ridiculous attempt at matchmaking, and been home in London two weeks ago."

"You will think me shallow..."

"You are going to tell me it was for the meals, perhaps?" she joked.

"Your cook _is _amazing, but that is hardly the whole of it." James paused then, and they took several quiet steps while he seemed to think how to discuss just how shallow his reasons had been.

"Our grandmothers are friends. And I could stand a good recommendation from Clarkson. Also, there's been the chance to second on so many procedures since I've been here... And oh, my dear Lady Edith, _second_ is a step up for me, sadly. I am not even unlucky enough to be the _second_ son at home. I have little more than my education. Besides... I want everyone to be happy. And the longer I stayed here at least _appearing_ to make an attempt at courting you, the happier our families have been. Well, and the better my future has looked."

"Certainly, there is a limit to your plan," she scolded gently.

"Yes. I think we've reached that. If my hanging about and extending my stay has complicated things, I'm sorry."

"The situation isn't your fault," she sighed.

"And maybe the situation can be improved. I still see no reason for everyone not to be happy," he told her carefully.

"You have _something_ in mind!"

"I am not advocating any dishonesty. Just ... We may want to delay any full and... well, _final_ sort of honesty. Things are nearly settled," James explained.

"Things are nearly settled over the hospital appointments in London, you mean. You do not want to upset my grandmother and aunt when their good word might help you," the young woman ably surmised.

"Yes," he admitted, as he came to a stop. He took her hand in his. She looked at him quizzically, but allowed him that liberty. "And with your eyes set on someone else, someone your mother is against, you may benefit from my helping you divert your family's attention." _Through displays like this_, he was saying; suddenly she realized what he was up to.

"I can't believe things have become so desperate that I would agree to this."

"I think they have," he told her gently. "Your grandmother hinted to me that you would more than welcome relocating to London. They are completely against whatever _local_… plans you might have."

/ / /

Edith did guess that her mother would do something to end her association with Anthony. It would never be enough that she merely push her at James or force her to cancel that one afternoon at the Strallan estate.

From an overheard conversation that night, Edith knew that her father seemed almost peevish when Cora tried to involve him. In his tired way, Lord Grantham complained about being at the whip's end on this. He was vociferous in explaining that he had no desire to be told what to do. And he pointed out that Cora had originally been all for throwing one or more of the girls at Anthony. Now she wanted to prevent any attachment and to enlist her husband in that effort? He was having none of it, not that he could foresee that any lasting attachment would be likely on either side.

Edith had hoped that perhaps things would cool down, given her father's unwillingness to act. Lord Grantham was not the sort to offend Anthony by saying anything as bold as, "You are inappropriate for my daughter."

But most probably Edith should have seen that her mother had no such qualms.

/ / /

Cora paid an impromptu call on Sir Anthony the very next afternoon, and from the beginning it was clear that the woman was all business. In very few words, she made it known that Edith would be spending no further time with him, and that it would be best if there were more distance... literally.

"I do think Edith would give poor James..." she began, after a modicum of pleasantries.

"...that would be the visiting physician..." Anthony said, showing he was quite aware of the situation.

"Yes, she would give him more attention if she were not here _helping _you with things."

He was cut to the quick with just that one well-aimed line. This was worse than being thought an unfit _suitor_ for her daughter. Cora had characterized it as if Edith were acting as his _nursemaid_. And God, that hurt, because ever since those fleeting moments when he had held Edith close at his chest, Anthony had let himself believe in something more.

"I can assure you that I do not rely on Edith for any sort of... care," Anthony stumbled.

But it was too late. Cora was letting him know that _that_ was nevertheless precisely how everyone must see their relationship.

"I would imagine that you are busy enough here..." she prompted.

And unwittingly, he played into the woman's hands by agreeing.

"Yes. And, so, you certainly don't need a young woman with overly good intentions coming around and getting underfoot," Cora stated. "We had our day, hmm, Sir Anthony? We need to give these young people the chance to have theirs."

What could he say, given that he could scarcely breathe?

"I will let her know," Cora finished, as she walked for the front door.

And the fury and frustration thudded through him at knowing what would happen now. Cora would replay this conversation to Edith in the most disastrous light.

Anthony was quite unsure how best to proceed. _Really,_ he thought, _the Germans had nothing on Lady Grantham. _He felt foolish for having played directly into her hands.

Foolish and bereft.

/ / / /

While her mother was orchestrating Edith's unhappiness, her grandmother was offering a small measure of understanding.

"I don't blame you for not wanting to end Sir Anthony's attentions, Edith," the dowager whispered with quiet sympathy. "But he doesn't expect anything to come from your afternoons together. He is old enough and wise enough to know that these things... well... the important thing is that you are willing to give Doctor Grant a chance."

"He's pleasant enough," Edith allowed as a sort of tactical concession. "And smart. Funny, even."

"Yes! Well, of course he is. And he seems rather fond of you. We are only asking you to keep an open mind."

"I understand," she told her grandmother. But she _didn't_ really understand why this had to be so complicated. Why couldn't she simply do what she pleased with her own life?

/ / / /

James returned the following evening for a formal dinner. He was seated with Edith just as Matthew was seated with Mary. None of this treatment was at all lost on the unwilling couple.

After dinner, they stood apart from the others. "How are you with all this, really, Lady Edith?" James asked quietly. "You seem a bit tense over it."

"Just 'Edith,' please, if you are to be my co-conspirator and feigned paramour," she whispered.

"Edith," he echoed with a smile.

"I haven't spoken with Sir Anthony, other than to cancel our afternoon together yesterday. I can't imagine what he's thinking," she said sadly.

"I'll take him a note for you, if you want."

"You're serious?" Edith managed after a pause to look closer at him.

"Yes. Your family has us scheduled together for the next few days, I think. But I could get over to his estate one morning. By Thursday, certainly."

"I know this is starting to sound like a very bad, terribly convoluted Italian opera," she said as she bent her head near his. "But our head housemaid told me Anthony telephoned while I was out walking this morning. The thing is, my mother apparently took the call, but then never told me about it."

"So she is not merely throwing us together. You think she is poisoning things between you and him?" James wondered.

"That sort of occurrence is entirely too common around here."

...

At the evening's end, James finished saying goodnight, but then doubled back before leaving the house.

"Edith," he said, jovially. And with every intention of being overheard, he continued, "You promised me that book recommendation. You said you would write it down for me. Would you mind terribly?"

"Oh. Of course I don't mind," she told him, catching his meaning. Retrieving a pad and pen from the hall telephone table, she wrote out merely, _"A. Trust me. Yours, E"_. She folded the note then and placed it in the doctor's palm with a worthy smile.

"Until tomorrow then, James."

"Yes. Lovely."


	8. Chapter 8

**_Thank you all for supporting me on this. I adore these two and want to do them justice. But it is a complicated business - working two hurt, unsure people toward each other._**

**_My thanks to dancesabove._**

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><p>The morning after Cora's visit, Sir Anthony was left alone to assess his options.<p>

Sitting at his desk, he rubbed his temples, hard. Anthony Strallan knew he was no bold tactician, but he prayed that in this instance he would at least prove effective. And although not everyone would agree, Anthony believed that sometimes a well-planned, tactical withdrawal, _**not**_ a retreat, mind you, was the only path to eventual victory.

The beleaguered man looked up from his chair to see that his butler was walking towards him. "Fuller," Anthony said, as he searched his desk drawer for a recent letter. "I think I am headed to London. Tomorrow. First thing. My cousin's house. I'm overdue for a visit," he said, thinking of the missive that had arrived last week, but was currently eluding him. "Do set Lawrence to packing. He'll be accompanying me."

"How long do you expect to be away, sir?"

"It could be a very long time."

"Tomorrow then, sir," the man echoed with a nod and a sense of something like confusion.

"Yes, yes," Anthony answered distractedly as the man left.

He found the letter at last and could not help but smile at it. There were few people whom he loved and enjoyed as much as his cousin Millicent. She was beautifully decisive. Always so sure. And Anthony thought then on what he had known since he was a child: he envied her that trait beyond all others.

What a ridiculous fool he was to find himself in this romantic quandary at his age. And she would surely tell him so.

Of course, he had put off a visit to Millicent's in London, because he had been enjoying Edith's company so very much. It had been as if the time were precious and enchanted. But all of that was changed now. The spell was lifted. Any magic had leaked away and expired with the intrusion of the outside world.

He and Edith had played at enjoying everything only in the present tense, and avoiding thoughts of the future. As if they could ignore the world or time or society's expectations. All they had proved was how impossible that blind effort had been when the full force of their emotions had come to the fore.

Now he just hoped that Millicent would lend a bed and a sympathetic ear. He trusted she could help him make sense of this. At the very least, the tale he must tell was likely to give Millie a chuckle, he allowed. How had such a quiet, unassuming man managed to attract such an air of drama around his middle aged life?

He would go. But he most assuredly would not _skulk_ out of the county as he had the last time a Crawley had meddled between him and Edith. Oh, he was going to _leave_, but not in confusion or because he was feeling crushed by the Crawleys.

His short stint in the Army had taught him two things: Do not expect the results to change if you simply reapply losing tactics. And, there is an advantage to be had in the best bits of terrain.

So, he was leaving. Taking up a better vantage point. Hoping to manage something new.

If he and Edith merely carried on as they had, and here, then there was no chance of seeing things settled.

_Only by going to London will I make any sense of this._ He hoped Edith would understand. He would soon know if she did.

He walked for the corner and sat down at the typewriter. The paper was already loaded, he noted with a smile. That boy Joseph was looking out for him, having seen that loading the thing was the most difficult part of using the new machine. Anthony ducked his head, almost ashamed. He had so resented every such act performed by others in the past. But Edith, through patience, had shown him not to see pity in these things.

"_We each of us needs help with something." _

Which begged the question, how was he to best help Edith?

With a sigh he began to hit at the keys in front of him.

...

_Dearest Edith,_

_Do not think too poorly of me for leaving. There is much for everyone to consider just now, and this is not the time and, I find, not the place for such important thoughts. Not for me, at least. _

_Be well. _

His fingers hovered over the keys as he wondered how to sign it.

He wished he could write,_ "Yours_."

_'Yours,' _he wanted to say_, 'Heart and soul and what's left of this pathetic body, I want to be yours, Edith.'_

But '_Truly_' is what he typed. Just _'Truly, Anthony_.'

_Pity me, _he thought as he struggled to fold the note.

_Must I always be so unsure when it comes to you, dear Edith__? Must I always doubt?_ he wondered as he worked to seal the thing. What he had written was certainly no sonnet, and it sported three hashed-out errors due to his inexperience with the new typewriter. He sighed with something close to self-loathing.

_Pity me,_ he thought again. _Not for the arm. But because I've managed to fall in love with you. And I stand to lose you twice._

/

It was a very serious-looking Doctor Grant who came to call on Edith Thursday at midday.

Once he'd got Edith outside and alone, James told her how he had tried to deliver the note that morning, but that Sir Anthony had not been at home. James then explained how Fuller steadfastly had not given a time when the man would return.

"I think he's... gone, not just out, Edith. Could something have scared him off?" the young man asked carefully.

Edith's laugh was pained, because she did have to wonder if Anthony was still the same man who had indeed been 'scared off' from a lawn party by a sharp-tongued Crawley years before. Lord, she didn't want to think that was possible.

"I think it's time I went back to London," James said sheepishly. "I'm feeling guilty over this charade. Your Sir Anthony has left. And perhaps that is because of me..."

"He knew about you. I suspect I'll find out his leaving is because of my mother," Edith put in.

"Why would your family prefer you ended up with me rather than him?"

"Even before the war... when he was... _whole,_ they considered him irretrievably dull, if only because he thinks more than he talks."

"Should I feel slighted?" James tried. "Are you saying I talk more than I think?"

Edith sighed with some frustration. "I am saying you are capable of being what they expect. You have that easy sort of manner. The talent for conversation. There is that comfortable way you become what they want you to be. And Anthony is... _amazing_. So very intelligent. Gentle and thoughtful. Not that they would ever know. Because all they see is the stiffness. That unease he gets over navigating an evening's inanity.

"He is even less confident... with others than he was before the war. And my family finds him even less suitable, because they think it would be impossible to be happy with a man like that. My mother can't understand how anyone could make a choice she herself would not make."

She felt adrift suddenly, and alone, as Anthony's leaving began to really hit her. Her skin was flushed hot. And everything felt so desperate that she no longer cared how evident it all was to James. She ducked her head a moment before she voiced her fears. "It could be that he has gone for exactly the reason he has been telling me – that no matter how much we enjoy our time together, he does not wish to marry. My... attentions may have convinced him that he needs to force me to do without him. Certainly, this saves him the embarrassment of having to refuse to see me while I stand anxiously on his doorstep." Any intended humor fell flat.

Gently then, James took her hand before whispering to her. "But still, if there is an attachment on both sides, why would he choose to leave? If you'll forgive my asking..."

"I don't know that I can explain it." She looked away while she considered how to put it into words. "The problem is not so much the _reality _of things," she finally said. "It is how he _sees_ things. How he sees himself."

James nodded. "Much in the way that your family perceives _me_ as a good prospect when the reality is that I am feeling far less than noble," he tried to joke with a wary smile.

"Yes. But it's serious, James. I... care for him. So much. And he's given up on that kind of happiness," she told him, her head still turned away.

James nearly winced with his discomfort as stepped a little closer. "I'm so sorry, Edith. I don't like seeing you unhappy. And... I shouldn't stay. What I am trying to say is that I should return to London... quite soon."

"The appointments for the surgical positions have been made? That's the _real_ reason you are ready to leave," she guessed.

"Yes. The appointments are made... but not announced. Doctor Clarkson told me he'd heard something this morning. I don't think he was supposed to tell me. Something makes me think your grandmother knows about the list, but did not want to interrupt... _us_. So, I have no idea if I am on the list. But there is no reason to stay here any longer." He wore a guilty, conflicted look on his face. "Unless I can help you somehow... but I've told Clarkson I'll shove off tomorrow."

"No. I'll be fine, James." She pulled herself up taller and smiled for him. "And you needn't look so ashamed. But if I might ask, could we just keep up this pretense today? Could you drive with me – as if it is just a drive – and we could go out to Sir Anthony's..."

"Yes. Of course."

"I'll see if Fuller will tell _me _where the devil he's gone," she said, tiredly.

They walked to the garage, James with his head down. Edith with tense determination.

"Will you let me tell you, Edith," James almost whispered as he pulled her to stop next to him, "that I saw some of this when I was training in a hospital during the war? The wounded men, the ones who would never be whole again. The only thing worse than having _them_ believe themselves lost was to see what became of them when the women in their lives decided that they were no longer fit or wanted. I don't want to give you false hope, but I pray that in time, Sir Anthony might learn to see himself the way you see him. I only hope a woman will see _me_ that way, one day."

She didn't care who saw them; it was too rare that Edith had this comfort and support. She reached out and stroked his cheek. "You would have made the most delightful big brother."

James chuckled and leaned in to kiss her on the forehead.

…..

Edith approached Sir Anthony's butler in the foyer while James hung back with the auto. Fuller yielded some information, and in what Edith felt was a most peculiar manner. He gave up the address where Anthony could be found in London and the name of the cousin whose house it was. All of this information came forth in a near-robotic manner, as if it was supposed to sound willing, but it was not quite. The man had his instructions. He did not necessarily agree with them.

The young woman nodded and thanked the man. But before she could turn for the door, Fuller handed her a note marked with a faintly scratched 'E'.

…

Edith stood with her back to the house now and she found she could wait no longer. She opened the note and bit her lip as she read the words.

"Edith?" James called softly.

"I'm not giving up," she said, more to herself than him.

"But, he _has_ left?" James whispered as Edith climbed back into the car.

"And I'll find him," she answered simply, but sadly.

He seemed a bit shocked, but endeavored not to let his expression look like a judgement. "Edith?" he asked most gently.

She shook her head. "I will sit him down and make him listen," she told James, slowly and seriously. "I will let him know how wonderful he is. And how sweet. That he deserves to be happy. That he makes me happy."

/ / /

"You look quite bereft over James' departure, Edith," her grandmother happily assessed the following day. And of course, her family would hope that James was behind her mood. But then they most likely did not know that Anthony had left the previous morning. They only knew James had gone on _this_ particular morning.

"You've grown quite close these past few days, haven't you?" The old woman seemed to let her gaze rest on her granddaughter's forehead then, as if she could see the kiss James had placed there.

...

An hour later, Edith stared into her closet and contemplated what to take away with her. "Just these two, I think," she told Anna.

It had been rash, but necessary, to involve someone else in her scheme. Edith found she had to smile, seeing that the head housemaid seemed far more bothered about this course of action than she herself was.

As an intelligent, normally rational young woman, Edith had to ask herself if what she was planning was a leap of faith. Was it an act of desperation? she wondered.

She handed a simple dress, one she hoped was flattering, to Anna and sighed. Her leaving was nothing so dramatic as a leap of faith, she knew. It was what she quite simply needed to do, and what she finally had the heart and courage to make happen.

For years she had tried to earn her family's love and favor by being attentive. Dutiful. Helpful.

It was always only _those _things her mother noticed – those acts of being good and quiet and somehow _helpful_ while being firmly behind the scenes.

Edith could not be that person today. Perhaps not ever again.

That dutiful Edith might ask her family to condone her trip. But it was easier in some instances, the young woman knew, to ask forgiveness rather than ask permission. There was a limit to her ability to appease her mother, and she'd reached that long ago.

"Where are you going, Lady Edith?" Anna asked with concern. "I'm worried about this."

Edith smiled thinly. "If I tell you, my parents will only interrogate you, Anna."

"But whatever you are doing… it is _safe_?" the housemaid stressed.

"Yes. As safe as a train ride and a London taxi are."

"Safe enough, then," Anna said, trying to sound light-hearted. "Doctor Grant has returned to London..."

Edith wanted to say something, but she was not sure quite what.

"...people might _think_ he was why you left," Anna finished, before Edith could find her voice.

Edith smiled at her confidante then. "That could almost be a _helpful_ misunderstanding."

"And… when I am asked..." Anna prompted in her gentle way.

"Tell them that I am meeting a friend at the Royal Geographical Society, and that I was _sure_ that I had told them about it," a slightly nervous-sounding Edith said. "Does that sound like it will work?" an attack of self-doubt made her ask.

"I'll make it work," the emboldened maid replied.

/

Edith paced the train platform, and she thought only of Anthony. She worried over him. She longed to be with him. She was faintly angry with the man.

And she felt him slipping away. With every footfall the feelings became more unmanageable. She was, she knew, hopelessly in love with him.

_Hopelessly._ And that was a dreadful way to be in love, she taunted herself.

She was startlingly decided, in that moment. She was not going all the way to London to persuade him they should resume their frozen, hopeless sort of relationship. _Because it was too late for that_, she realized with a start. Far too late to merely resume what was not nearly enough.

The young woman had known she wanted more from him; but now she knew she could not settle for less. That decision thrilled her for a moment, but she quickly came to almost deplore herself then. Because demanding more might be what drove Anthony away once and for all. Holding only to each day, keeping the relationship free of physical entanglements _those_ had been his conditions for seeing her.

And, God help her, she thought as she watched the train finally approach, she would not keep to those conditions any longer. There was something full and unmistakable in her now. But at the same time it was sadly, desperate. The feelings were as unmistakable as they were unprecedented, for her. Being so in love should bring her some joy, but when she looked down, she could see a tremor to the hand that held her ticket.

She wanted him. More permanently. Most completely.

She was doing the right thing, she was sure. So, why was she so afraid?


	9. Chapter 9

_**A/N: I had hoped this story would magically transform in my eyes and I would not be writing something like an apology and a confession to you now. I have more problems with this story than any other I have written. And in truth, I often just want to shred it. I started it at a time when I simply needed to post, to get something out there, to write... because I thought it would help me cope. But it was not a great time as we were working through my daughter's Type 1 diabetes diagnosis. So there were those buckets of worry and distress and 2 months of 3 am checks. And a severely diminished ability to make sense when I typed things out.**_

_**But you folks have stood with me and read and reviewed. I thank you so sincerely. And I promise you a pay off of (hopefully) yummy unabashed romance. Goodness willing, I will hit my stride.**_

**_My thanks to dancesabove who has fixed what she can._**

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><p>Edith had been on edge for the whole of the journey, hating the uncertainty and hating the weather. <em>With luck<em>, she had repeatedly told herself, _with luck, I'll get there at a reasonable hour. With luck, I'll look like something other than a drowned sheepdog when I arrive._

But she had no luck. She chided herself that she should be at least slightly accustomed to that by now.

The rain had not only delayed her train, but had made the entire process of finding a taxi deplorable. She leaned back in the cab's compartment and pushed at the wet hair at the edges of her hat. With chilled fingers, she pulled back her sleeve to find her timepiece. _Dear God. _She was arriving not only uninvited, but hours later than she had planned.

And looking like that dreaded drowned sheepdog.

Worry filled her as she finally walked towards the door. Lodged in her throat was that particular brand of anxiety that tells a soul she is most assuredly about to make a complete fool of herself. But she persisted, and raised her hand to ring the bell.

The young servant who pulled the door open faded quickly back and let her enter so that she stood wet and dripping on the foyer's tiles. Edith had not yet managed her jumbled explanation of who she was when she heard a commotion from somewhere out of sight. She was sure that a number of persons were approaching her unhappy scene. But it was just the one, she soon saw.

A lady of middling height and in her fifties cleared a corner and swept along the hall towards her. A... _robust_ sort, Edith decided. Her clothing was neither dowdy nor dramatic. Instead, everything about her was _just so_. Her face glowed with enthusiasm and her words were meeting Edith at this distance, long before the pair could shake hands.

"You must be Lady Edith," the mistress of the house said with an unreasonable joy. This woman was, Edith decided on closer inspection, a woman of balanced roundness. Round of body and face, she seemed prone to smiling broadly. Even her words seemed full and round.

"Oh, I have been hoping to meet you, my dear," the elder woman continued with her arms held wide. Edith suffered a slight momentary panic that she would be embraced. "I've been hoping to see the mettle of the woman, so to speak." Lady Millicent said this last loudly enough, but with a conspiratorial turn of the head and a wink, as if granting the conversation some semblance of intimacy. "I'm Anthony's cousin, Millicent. But I know you have that figured out already."

"You were expecting me then?" Edith managed.

"Yes. Most decidedly! Now, let Edward help you with that wet coat and hat."

"Well, it is good of you to open the door to me at all at this hour," Edith said most apologetically, as she complied. "I completely miscalculated how long all of this would take, Lady Millicent. And the train was delayed. And the rain..."

"Oh, please just call me 'Millie.' I'll feel less old if you do. We might be long on title here. But we are short on formality," Lady Millicent said. By which the elder woman also meant that the house was not a well-off one any longer. "I hope you will forgive us." The woman turned from Edith then to address the lanky young servant who lingered a correct number of paces away. "Get Sir Anthony, please, Edward," she said to the footman. Millie looked back to Edith and stage-whispered, "He is in his room wearing out the floorboards." There was another nod in Edith's direction. And another wink.

"You are incredibly kind to have me in," Edith offered, not knowing what on earth else to say. She looked down and saw that she was clutching her hands tight at her stomach, as if to appease the feeling of unease there.

"Are you cold?"

"No. Really," Edith assured her.

"Come through and sit down," the elder woman insisted. And she led the way into the sitting room. "We can talk quickly, before he gets down."

"I'm sure I don't know what to say. I just..." she stammered to an end. And the truth of all she felt should not have been quite so easily conveyed to a woman who if not for the past three minutes was a complete stranger.

"You just needed to see Anthony," Millicent supplied gently, as she settled into the settee.

"Yes," Edith admitted.

Just as Edith sank into the chair that Mille indicated, the room's door was firmly pushed open.

Edith was on her feet again before she even saw him. But she forgot to breathe for far longer than is helpful to a woman hoping to make a good impression.

"Look what the rain brought us. I know you're pleased," Millie told her speechless cousin. Edith blushed and drew in a long-overdue and noisy breath.

The younger woman had meant to hold her tongue until she and Anthony were alone. But she was feeling horribly impatient, and it did not seem as if Millicent was in any hurry to afford them some privacy.

"I'm sorry, Anthony," Edith said, despite the audience.

"Whatever for?" the stunned man asked, as he crossed to stand nearer Edith.

"It's late, and I've been impulsive," she said, walking a little closer still.

"There are worse sins," Lady Millicent inserted, although she had not been addressed. She smiled then, as she stood. "Especially if it's you she's been impulsive over, Anthony," she whispered, as she sidled behind Anthony for the door. "I'll get someone to bring you something to drink, then... and set someone to fixing up a room."

"I couldn't impose," Edith protested, although she could not be happier that she would not be sent back into the night.

"You will stay," Millie insisted from the doorway. "Oh, you must. Because I won't brave Anthony's mood on my own."

Anthony turned back to Edith, thinking his cousin would surely be on her way with that last salvo. "You figured out where I was," he said quietly.

Because Millie seemed content to linger half-in and half-out of the room, Edith tried to whisper her reply. "You did everything but leave bread crumbs, Anthony! Your butler seemed to have such conflicting feelings, telling me everything so precisely and yet so unwillingly, that I figured you had insisted he tell me."

Anthony smiled at her. "I wanted you to come, if you were at all inclined to do so, and I didn't want you lost," he admitted.

His cousin chimed in then. "You've always been the most considerate fellow in the strangest way, Anthony. Even as a boy." Then Millicent addressed Edith, over Anthony's quiet objections. "He offered me the first frog he'd caught one summer, in case I would feel at all left out over being, well... frog-less."

"_Really,_ Millie," he insisted.

Anthony was very nearly done wincing by the time the door finally, finally closed behind Millicent.

Alone with him at last, Edith registered the full flood of nerves. She felt it thudding through her, making her hands nearly shake. Either they would come to some understanding, or this would be amongst the last conversations they had.

"I'm sorry, Edith," he told her. He had pulled up short, just out of her reach, and so she closed the space until she could put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry that things are so strangely complicated," he continued. "That I am so difficult..."

She didn't look at him. Her head bent, it nearly rested at his chest. "_You_ have a terrible habit of running off when I would prefer you to stand your ground. Why did you leave your estate and come here? Please, don't lie," she demanded as she finally met his eyes.

"Nothing good was going to come from my sitting there and ruminating on things. Distance, I thought, had become quite key. Me from that house. You from me."

"That's what my mother told you."

"Yes," he admitted, holding her at arm's length. "But she might be right, despite everything. You might think yourself happy now. But in five years..."

"We need to forget anything my mother might tell us."

"That's a wonderful idea, Edith," he said, cautiously. "But dealing with your family is unavoidable. They affect us whether we want them to or not. And I have the feeling she is right in a way..."

Edith was feeling frustrated with him and their conversation. "You can't agree with her."

He shook his head, obviously feeling out of his depth at the bent this conversation had taken. "Please. Knowing how to handle this has been quite difficult for me. I have a responsibility to you."

"Let _me_ worry about _me_," she insisted.

Gently then, with something like disapproval or disbelief, he merely murmured, "Edith."

Undeterred, she couldn't stop her words. "I wish you believed the way I do. That things seem simpler. _Better._ So beautifully possible, if I can just have your arms around me."

And she should have prevented her mistake or anticipated the strength of his objection when it came. He stiffened at once, and she realized what she'd said. "My _arms," _he replied. "Yes. Now that is a problem, given..."

Ordinarily, she would have fought with him over the dismal attitude he was taking. On any other night she would have managed to find the words to admonish and reassure him.

Not tonight. Tired and desperate, she didn't know what words might possibly work. So she surprised them both and moved briskly forward to be against his chest. And she kissed him instead. She cut off his words.

One hand was to his cheek, the other firmly gripped his waistcoat. Finally, she felt the man relent and kiss her back.

And she didn't stop kissing him.


	10. Chapter 10

**_A/N: Thank you for reading and for reviewing and for all your sweet understanding. It feels like a team effort getting these two heaved over the finish line. It will get done. I am trying hard not to disappoint._**

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><p>There was a knock at the door that Edith did not doubt was meant to give them the chance to move apart. The flushed young woman turned to face the fireplace even as her fingers reluctantly passed from Anthony's waistcoat. Slowly then, Millicent entered the room, as did a stern-faced maid bearing the promised tray.<p>

"She looks tired," Millie whispered, with a gentle hand to Anthony's back. "Don't keep her up too late. Get her settled in once she's telephoned her parents? As for me, all of this drama is too much after 8 o'clock," she concluded a little louder now.

Edith suspected that no amount of drama was too much for that kindly soul. It was more likely that Millicent was merely ready to concede them their privacy at last. When Edith finally turned around again, she found she and Anthony were alone.

"Your parents need to know you've arrived safely in London so they don't worry," he ventured.

She paused, feeling off-balance at his decision to avoid talking about what had just happened. There had been his comments. Her frustration. Her kissing him forcefully. And his eventual and lovely participation. He was acting as if none of that had happened, and she supposed she would have to let him, for now.

"Actually, this must be getting rather redundant for my parents," she said.

"Worrying over you?"

She shook her head quickly. "Their daughters misbehaving or running off. Sybil left, but we fetched her back."

"And you? You didn't tell anyone you were leaving? You just snuck off?"

Even though his voice had been calm and level, she felt as if she were being scolded. "Let's not have the pot calling the kettle black."

"What I did isn't the same," he tried to protest.

And she knew it wasn't, because his situation was so completely different. "You don't need to remind me that I have somehow managed to remain under my parents' roof, if not their thumbs, at this advanced age. Nor do I need reminding that _you_ are free to come and go as you please."

He sighed and stepped cautiously closer.

"We shouldn't be fighting. I'm happy you are here. So happy. But that does not mean I want to provoke your family."

"Well, I doubt there's anyone at home who feels provoked enough to come collect me," she said with no slight frustration.

"You want someone to come after you?" he asked softly, seeing her for the under-appreciated woman she was.

"I don't. Of course, I don't. It might just be a sort of fantasy. If you understand," she admitted sadly.

"I do understand. I like to think I am someone who understands you... _very_ well. Now, come telephone Downton before your father gets the authorities involved." He tried to smile. "Before it comes to pistols at dawn," he said with a raise to his eyebrows.

"I am beginning to feel I'm an awful lot of trouble."

"You _might_ be a bit of trouble," he teased, as he leaned in to kiss her forehead. "But on the other hand, I have _never _had a woman chase me down like this. It's rather... ah... exciting. Even if it feels undeserved."

She smiled as if rewarded.

"Come along," he whispered, looking quite pleased. "I'll show you the telephone."

When she finished a few minutes later, she told him simply that she'd left a message with Carson.

"Oh, Edith!" he said with exasperation. "Why wouldn't you talk with your mother or father?"

"I told Carson to 'remind' my parents I had come to London for a lecture at the Royal Geographical Society. Please, tell me there is one?"

"There's always something... but how did you explain where you were staying?"

"I wouldn't have explained at all if Carson was not so thorough. I told him I was staying with a friend," she said with a shrug. "If I _had_ spoken with one of my parents, I would have had to _name_ that friend. You would not make a very good dependent daughter. You don't know any of the tricks," she teased.

Anthony seemed amused despite their bit of a quarrel, just minutes earlier.

"Tell me what's happening here, Anthony? Are we avoiding discussing...?"

"Come talk with me." He took her by the hand and led her into the sitting room. Unwilling to release her, he was forced to hook the door with his foot to see it closed, an act that pleased Edith no end. Still, she would have her say.

"I want to settle this, Anthony. I don't want to be packed off to bed like a child, not knowing what we are going to do..."

"You were upset with me for saying your mother might be right about me, but..."

"Of course, that upset..."

He cut off her words with just his finger to her lips at first. But when she continued to try to complain, he leaned in to kiss her.

"Now, _shush,_" he mock-ordered a minute later.

"What was that?" she asked, her eyes wide, her words a tad breathless.

His face was soft and playful then. "Turn-about is fair play. Or it should be. Believe me, a man could grow to enjoy disagreeing with you, Edith."

"Anthony?" She was wondering how to ask him if he felt quite well. He certainly was not acting like himself.

"Will you let me explain?" he asked.

"Yes."

"You won't interrupt me?"

"I will try hard not to," was the best concession he could get from her.

He paused while he considered how to phrase this best. Leading with 'this might not work' was sure to provoke her. And while kissing her into silence was an option once, it was a poor way to conduct an entire conversation.

"Millie suggested I should not break off with you unless we had truly discussed _everything_. We need to try to understand what it would be like to be together. Not glossing over the difficulties. Not ignoring the things that are right. I know I've vacillated in the worst possible way. Wanting to be with you, kissing you, and then telling you it would never work."

"So... so what does all of this mean, exactly?"

"Do you want to 'take up with me' so to speak, even if it is all meant to be a sort of test?"

"Yes," she said, without the need for a moment's thought.

"And it will be without me constantly pushing you away. Millicent has lectured me on that point."

"It _has_ been confusing," she agreed.

"But I won't do anything to jeopardize your happiness. Because, your mother might be right..."

"Dear God, Anthony. If you get to set limits, so do I. I would suggest you not mention my mother for the whole of this... trial."

"If you are meant to be happy with someone else, I won't stand in the way."

She squinted at him as she began to understand what this might mean. "So, we are supposed to pretend we are only friends for my family's sake? And my parents are free to continue to push men at me? "

"I think that would be best."

"Best? It's a perverse compromise. But I won't complain." She heaved a rather unladylike sigh of relief and looked up to the ceiling. "I'll _try_ not to complain," she amended.

"Good. Wonderful," he stressed. "But it is late. So, let me show you your room." When he reached the stairs, he paused on the bottom step so that they would walk up together.

But instead of standing beside him, she moved one step higher to stand in his way, and she cast her arms around his neck.

"You're happy then?" he surmised.

"Yes. You have no idea how worried I was, on my way here." She ran light fingers through his hair, and he didn't object.

…

Once to the third floor, they stood awkwardly in the hallway. Neither wanted the evening to end, but neither was willing to let the hallway conversation turn serious. While they chatted outside her door, saying very little, Lawrence appeared from around the corner. "Is this a good time, sir?" the young valet wanted to know.

"Yes," Anthony simply replied. And he felt embarrassment color his cheeks. "Good night, Lady Edith." There was then an overly formal nod of the head before he turned for his room across the hall.

/ / / /

Anthony knocked on her door 30 minutes later and began with an apology. "Ah, you've had no difficulty," he said, with a nervous sort of cough over finding her in her nightgown and robe. "I should have made sure that you were set for the night before I let Lawrence help me."

"You were embarrassed."

"Yes," he admitted. And he realized that answer had been the first of a thousand more honest conversations he would have to manage if this was going to be a fair sort of test. "Ridiculous, really. Just because..."

She touched his arm to stop him. "I understand. Really. And it's _not_ ridiculous," Edith knew that, while it was certainly nothing uncommon for a man of his station to have a valet, Anthony had never relied on one like this before – never felt at another man's mercy. As wounding as that might be to an active man's ego, it was only worse to have a woman see that dependence. And she owed it to him to acknowledge what he was experiencing, instead of always trying to fix it.

"And you needn't have worried about me," Edith continued. "That rather serious maid of your cousin's, Amanda, sorted me quite nicely. I'm washed and pressed and ready for bed," she tried to joke. But it was all a little too uncomfortable to be conversing in their nightwear.

/ / / /

He tried to make small talk. To ask her what she would like to do the following day.

"We shouldn't be in the hall, not at this hour," she told him. "Our voices will carry." Already her tentative hand was at the lapel of his dressing gown, leaving little doubt that she expected him to come with her as she backed into her room.

She could be creating her own nightmare, she knew. And God help her, she couldn't stop. Feeling as she did, she could almost understand what her sister had done that night with that man, Pamuk. But Edith would never understand how Mary could have chosen the man she had – one who offered so little. Or how Mary could have offered up so much without her heart's involvement.

As Edith urged Anthony into the room, she wanted to explain that this was a new era. 'There are bohemians, artists and poets everywhere that have precisely the relationship they want without worrying about reputations and marriage,' she could imagine herself explaining to him. 'You could come to bed with me.'

She would tell him that she was not trying to trap him into something.

But she could already hear his objection. She could picture the way he would shake his head and point out that the pair of them are _anything_ but bohemians or poets or...

"Edith, before I go back to my room..."

"You needn't go," she heard herself say.

She looked down immediately, not believing that she had just propositioned the man, and, yet, she was glad of it all at once.

Did he understand the full measure of what she was saying? she wondered. He stuttered his step a tad, and she couldn't be sure. But he went on as if he had not heard her.

"I want to make you understand why it's been so difficult for me to decide that anything between us was fair to you. Why it is difficult to take your assurance that you could be happy with me."

But he lost his composure then as he let the sight of her – the skin at the top of her nightdress, the blush across her cheeks – affect his thinking. That rush of color was so compelling, as if she were affected by standing with him here. And he tortured himself, wondering if she would ever want him truly to stay in her room. In her bed.

'_You needn't go,'_ she had said. The words seemed different, charged, as he replayed them over and again. But she had only meant that he needn't hurry back to his room, he chastised himself. He couldn't stay with her tonight. Not even if he were asked (and when had a woman not his wife ever asked him? he taunted himself). It would be unforgivable.

But he would kiss her. He couldn't deny himself that much. Already, he was pressing tentative kisses into her hairline and trying to remember what it was that he had been prepared to tell her. And when he felt her shiver against him and pull him tighter, he almost gave in to the fantasy that Edith would one day ask him to stay the night.

How he would manage not to fumble the act, given his infirmity, he wasn't even sure. But, Lord, she made him want it. Want her.

He hummed into her hair and resisted laughing at himself. He cleared his throat to start his explanation again. "I want to make you understand... why it has been difficult for me to just take your assurance that you will not regret me. It has to do with the war, as far too many things do, even now," he said, his head down. She reached for his hand and held it, hoping he would feel her encouragement. "I am far too old to have been recruited normally; surely you, along with everyone else, must have noticed that," he said at last.

"Well, I know my father was denied active service, but you are a few years younger..."

"And still too old. I was recruited by a friend of mine. Have you heard of Whitehall?"

"Yes. Of course."

"Well, the Deputy Directory for Military Intelligence – at Whitehall – became convinced I was needed to help with field-testing armored vehicles."

"Because you know so much about mechanization," she guessed. "I've never met anyone who knows more about agricultural mechanization than you. And I read that the Army's armored vehicles were based on tractors."

He smiled painfully. "This entire unlikely tale happened because I had rather immersed myself in a study of mechanization, because I'm able to converse in French, but mostly because I roomed with the man who became chief aide to the Deputy Director for Military Intelligence while pursuing a long-forgotten degree in engineering. Still, all of those things would have left me safe and boring in Aldershot if Whitehall had meant something other than observing these machines in battle, in France, when they said 'field test.'"

"But you were in the Army, I thought."

"When the time came for me to go to France, they gave me a commission so that I would not be traipsing about the battlefield in civilian clothes. But I had no business being that close to things that day. That is what I've been trying to explain. About knowing better, Edith. About making decisions and being unwilling to risk what might happen to _someone else_. Right now, it's you. But during the war, it was a lieutenant who was far too confident for his own good."

"I don't understand."

"It was my decision. I was the one responsible," he lamented. "But the lieutenant, Wilson, was _so_ confident. So sure that he had found a likely spot for us to observe from. And somehow, inside, I knew I should not have risked it. But I let him convince me. Everything that happened because of that decision was my fault."

"It can't be that simple, Anthony. Not if he was an infantry lieutenant with months in France under his belt and you were a newly commissioned scientific advisor," she said, with a startling aplomb gained as an officer's daughter.

"Yes, well, simple or no, the outcome was the same. Our observation post was spotted. Dear God, we were only lucky it wasn't worse. The snipers had no time to finish us off. Wilson was shot clean through the shoulder. I ended up like this. Thankfully, there was an aid station only half a mile from there."

She squeezed his hand hard, as if she could root him here in the present. "This decision we need to make about giving us a proper try is _nothing_ as rash as a battle."

He half-laughed, but in a hurt fashion. "As young as you are... with everything in front of you? You _are_ risking your life, well, the _living_ of your life. Every woman does when she takes up with a man, whether that is for a night or far longer. Some facade of… 'romance' is little help when things go badly. And it would be my fault."

"I have no idea exactly what 'this' is between us; we've left it so pitifully undefined," she said firmly. "But I have lived for those moments with you. There are no promises between us, still. I understand. And you needn't worry that some storybook idea of romance is coloring my vision." She managed to sound more amused than bitter when she began again. "The war killed romance, didn't it? Made it almost impossible. Passé. We can't be the only two souls who have figured that out. All that idle but dishonest commerce between men and women? Gone," she finished. She reached out and pet at his hair, her words and her sentiment playing oddly against each other. And he let her touch him, plainly stunned by her. She was so much more than she appeared.

"You beautiful dear," he said, sounding sad. "You amazing, beautiful woman. If our roles were reversed, you would understand why I'm so cautious."

She sank against the door, feeling undone.

"I don't want to be cautious. I would rather get this spectacularly wrong then pride myself on dying a brilliantly cautious woman," she told him, a desperate ache in her voice. She paused then, as if summoning her courage. "I've been afraid to tell you what should be the most splendid thing... "

"You can tell me, Edith. Anything."

She shook her head but began to form the words anyway. "I've fallen in love with you. I've fallen so hard. And I didn't know how wonderful and wretched it would feel. I wish..." and in that moment her face took on the stricken look of an admission both painful and necessary.

And for once, Anthony Strallan was more determined to fix what he could instead of being hesitant. He whispered her name, but she only shook her head harder before she managed to say any more. "I wish we _had _ married. Before the war. Even though I only felt a fraction of this back then. But you'd be stuck with me now. Mine to love and care for, and I wouldn't give you up." She groaned before she could continue. "There. It's out, and I'm sorry." She drew in a shaky breath and released his hand. "And now, I've broken all my promises to you about not speaking of a future, about not mentioning marriage. And I've let myself appear just that pitiful, so I'll let you go."

She moved to let him leave. Her hand on the door, she opened it for him as she stepped to the side. She was too embarrassed to even look at him any longer.

He got himself across the threshold, although he did not know how he had accomplished moving at all. When he turned he saw her there, head down, seeming mortified. But still, as always, far braver than he'd ever manage.

And he should not let that be.


	11. Chapter 11

_**A/N: My continued thanks to all of you who read and review. I must specifically thank the person who found it as fun to send the 100th review as I did to get it. It is a wonderful milestone for things Edith and Anthony.** _

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><p><em>'I've fallen in love with you,' Edith had told him.<em>

And he could see the act of confession pained her, made her fearful. Still worse, she felt wretched, she'd said, over being in love with him.

Standing there, that resultant ache inside of him, it was strangely logical to Anthony that all of that would be true. He'd been so cautious, so indecisive... how could he ever expect loving him could make her happy?

Anthony realized he could not let her close the door without saying something. He could not let her reproach herself for telling him the most incredible thing. She was the brave one. She shouldn't suffer for it. His hand came up to catch the door, and the action was so uncharacteristically swift that it seemed to startle them both.

"Edith," came his emotion-filled plea. She shook her head faintly, as if willing the embarrassment to end.

"Please, Edith. Listen to me. I'm an old fool. Unhappy because of myself... I can't stand to think I've made you unhappy as well."

"No," she told him as she backed away. "I shouldn't have said all of that. I..."

With an anxious breath, he stepped into the room. And once he stood close before her, he coaxed her chin up with a gentle touch. "This is not your fault. You are the most wonderful. Patient and incredible woman. Edith... "

"Don't tell me I'm patient. I can't stand it."

"Why?" he asked. And with a turn of his head, he tried to work under her defenses and meet her eye.

"Because it seems almost calculating to be considered patient. As if I've been angling for a future with you, despite my promises. But truly. Every day has been wonderful. Each day has been enough," she insisted. "You shouldn't feel pressured to offer more if you don't want to."

He tried to object over how wrong that sounded. His muddled words came as quickly as he could manage.

"No," she told him, simply. She couldn't bear his apologies.

"Let me make this right. Tomorrow. Dear Edith." He stroked her face softly. "You are such a lovely woman. We can talk all of this through in the morning."

She shook her head at his assertions. Waiting would only lead to another tomorrow's negotiations, more tortured declarations, more of his cautious back-tracking.

Impulsively she shut the door, with him still in her room. And he let her. She would keep him here with her and close out every fear and doubt. She would will this not to end quite as badly as it felt it would.

"It's late," he offered weakly.

"Come sit down," she countered. But she didn't lead him to the chair. "_B__e_ here. Please, just that," she told him, in a voice that was rough with worry. "If you go just now..." _It will all leak away_, she thought.

She took his hand, and he followed her towards the bed. But his steps were leaden and vaguely unsure. He was clearly trying to process her expectation that he sit with her in the room, and on her bed. Them, in their night clothes.

"Sit," she said again. He complied, but sunk mechanically to the mattress. She was tempted to watch him for signs that he would flee, but she walked for the far side of the bed. And as she did, her anxious fingers threw off her robe.

She crawled into bed less timidly than she felt, and curled on her side near where he sat. For a long moment he was struck dumb by how she looked lying next to him, by the simple and inviting vision of her head on her pillow.

He touched her hair and smiled as if far away. "Beautiful," he murmured. "Sometimes... everything seems so easy."

"But you will doubt things tomorrow," she couldn't help but say.

"You don't trust me not to foul this up. And... and I don't blame you."

"I don't trust much of anything," she explained, sounding sad. "And with us, there are so few times when we aren't worried about tomorrows. When you aren't wondering what you should do."

He told her gently, "The war left us all wondering what to trust and what to believe in."

"But, you, Anthony, I believe in. I believe in wanting to be with you."

"You know that it's _me_ I doubt. Not you," he emphasized. "Never you."

"Please," she said, and she pulled ever so lightly at his sleeve. "Now, lie down, Anthony," she managed as levelly as she could.

There was a sigh from him; a look that told her he doubted this action was sane. And then he lay down next to her, turning with some mildly clumsy effort.

It had the feeling of a tenuous sort of victory to her. So she quickly reached to switch off the light by the bed, then rolled to touch him.

A hand to his cheek, she replayed their discussions in her head: tonight's, and the one from all those months ago. It all made a little more sense.

"_I don't need a wife. I need a nurse."_ She had hated hearing those words. But only now had she better begun to understand. To appreciate how difficult it must be for him to trust and believe, because he measured the future against the past.

He did not want a woman to look after him.

And Edith saw now that Millicent's notion that they should honestly explore what was possible between them just wasn't enough. _Talk_ would not remedy this. If he never changed how he perceived his ability to take care of someone, things would always be like this.

He wanted someone only if he would be able to provide for her. And he could not see that he _did_ provide so _much_ for her, exactly the way he was.

"You worry that I can't rely on you," she said softly, "as a man wants a woman to rely on him. And all I've done is insist that you should let _me_ worry about _me_. I'm an idiot."

"No," he countered strongly.

"I do need you..."

"How could you need me?" he wondered.

"Because you take care of me – as any intelligent woman wants to be cared for. You understand me. Encourage and humor me. I am a real and proper person to you..."

"Of course you are..."

"And when you kiss me..." she trailed off.

"What?"

"Don't make me explain," she said, shyly.

He smiled with the warmth he felt course through him, and with the fullness of realization. "You don't need to explain," he told her. "I know how that is."

Suddenly he felt like conjuring those feelings for them both.

Without thinking, he let the kiss be what he wanted. Slow and open-mouthed, until he teased at her lip quickly with his teeth as a sort of parting.

"Right now, Anthony. I've needed you to reassure me and hold me, and you have..."

"But, I should go," came his cautious words.

"You needn't go," she said again, her voice breaking. "You _mustn't_." And her hand captured his where it still rested at her jaw. "I've kissed you before, only to have you disappear," she tried to tease. "Tell me this time you'll stay. At least a little while more."

"All right, my girl. My darling girl. If you say so." Because – just now – he trusted her judgement more than he trusted his own.

They did better alone together; he sensed this as much as she did. So it was not overly difficult for her to convince him that they should take this chance to spend more time away from the expectations and judgements, and the weight of well-meaning opinion.

Gingerly, her hand stroked his shoulder, as if she could not trust him to want her touch.

"It's all right. Truly. Go to sleep now, Edith," he whispered. "We'll talk in the morning."

"Be here. If you would, just that," she said again, her voice rough with worry. "If I let you go just now..."

"Sleep, Edith," he tried. "Let me put my arm around you..." He struggled to shift. "Will you let me?" His voice caught with the emotion of it, but only he noticed it. He lifted his arm to have her slip beneath it, and she settled her head on his chest. Immediately he felt how wonderful, how dangerously wonderful, it felt to have her so close. "Don't worry so much," he told her. "Trust me, just a little? Please. Sleep now."

She fisted her hand into his pajama shirt where his dressing gown had fallen open. And she pulled in against him. Calm settled on her then, and she fell asleep quite easily.

/ / / / / / / /

They hadn't been sleeping long, perhaps an hour. He woke to find her hand beneath his dressing gown, absently skimming across his back.

Sleepy, warm, and entranced by her, he began to mirror her touch.

She tugged at his shirt lightly, and they fumbled a few ridiculously chaste kisses.

He wondered if she were trying to act more comfortable than she felt. "You don't need to prove anything to me, Edith."

"I'm not trying to. I assure you. I'm not putting on a show. I'm just being selfish, really. I want this... to have you hold me... and kiss me. I want to be close… and have you explain to me... show me... "

In the briefest flash in her mind, Edith found herself again sympathizing with Mary over that strange affair with Mr Pamuk. There were those similarities. There were these glaring differences. Mary never loved that man.

This one was everything to her.

Edith moved then from her anxiety to seeing the strange humor in things.

"What are you laughing about?" Anthony asked with quiet amusement.

"It is the most horribly, ironic thing. And ridiculously hypocritical. I'll have to apologize to Mary all over again."

"I don't understand."

"There are things I can never explain," she told him, and then she whispered, "Kiss me, please."

His lips ghosted across hers. Exciting them both. He felt her tremble. He felt his stomach turning weak.

It occurred to him then, as he studied the outline of this woman lying next to him, that it all felt like being married. In this moment they had found that sweet and easy middle distance between a couple.

But they weren't married.

"Edith. We need to stop."

"We don't. That's what I've been trying to tell you. Not just tonight, but for weeks now, I've been trying to explain that whether we manage five years together or five months, isn't the point. Getting married isn't the goal, necessarily. Managing to be happy is. And _you_ are what makes me happy."

"You make me happy, too."

"So, please. Don't stop..." The near absence of light made it easier to give him her practiced speech, that there were artists, poets and Bohemians everywhere who manage precisely the relationship they wanted without worrying about convention or the future.

"I have travelled enough, read enough, to know that's true," he told her. "But is that really us?"

"I – I want to know what it is like… to touch you. Finally, truly touch you. I want to find… warm skin beneath my fingers, not just the polite arm of the man I'm sitting at dinner with. If I could _know_..." She faltered then, ashamed.

"You want to know what it's like to have a man make love to you?" he whispered, as if under her spell.

"I want to know what it is like to have Anthony Strallan make love to me," she corrected. She looked away as if to avoid his eyes. "If being with me... like that seems impossible... we'll forget everything."

This was not a conversation he remembered ever having before. And he was not a young man.

"Telling you _that _wasn't something I could manage, Edith. It is not usually a wise sort of comment to make to a lady."

"But will you tell me?"

There was a long and heavy pause. "For so long, I've thought how lovely it would be to have you with me, just as you are right now."

And with a shaky sort of smile, she conceded that – for now – that comment would have to stand for a declaration of sexual desire coming from this respectable and repressed gentleman passed his 45th year.

/ / / /

_**note: thank you dancesaove for the able editing. (Oh, crud... did that need commas?)**_


	12. Chapter 12

**_A/N: The content here comes with a warning. But if done correctly, the next two chapters will show some foibles and some vulnerability and will demonstrate that getting things a bit backwards can move things forward. _**

**_Thank you dancesabove._**

**_And thank all of you for reading and for all the lovely reviews. I am so thrilled to see how loved Edith and Anthony are. Go Team._**

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><p>There were their awkward kisses then. Hands shyly tangled in the other's clothes. The more serious things became, the more unsure their actions were.<p>

"I'm sorry. I can't see so well," she told him quietly after they'd bumped heads lightly. She was confirming for him that she was his wonderful, practical dear.

"There's the candle on the dresser if you want a little more light. If you'd prefer that I kiss you, quite thoroughly, with the benefit of a bit of light," Anthony replied. He gave up his try at easy nonchalance then. He trailed a single finger down her bare arm, and he bit his lip. "I'm not immune to you, Edith. To how lovely you are. So tell me. Should I light that candle? Shouldn't we go to sleep?"

He was wavering, as the poor man was prone to doing. She had started to finally believe that he wanted to make love to her, but he seemed to need reassurance still. She considered what they'd said, weighed it. There was the code in their words, perhaps. If she told him yes, to the candle, would he finally know she was telling him that she _did_ still want to make love to him?

And did she truly want this? A small childish part of her had to ask. She had read enough, overheard enough, to know that it could be a claustrophobic sort of… well, _trial._

But, feeling his fingertips on her skin, Edith realized, it was really a decision already made. For far too long, she had known how she felt about him and that she deeply craved the completeness tonight might offer. And so, yes, she did need him to light that candle and then be with her. He was the man she loved; that trumped any doubts that bubbled at the edges of her mind.

When so much time has been lost already, when there is no clarity at all about a future, there is an urgency to _now_.

"Would you light the candle, please? And come back to bed."

He could manage that. He had worked this out; how to wedge the match box in his right hand and then strike with his left. Inelegant. But achievable. He pushed his way from the bed. And on his trip to the dresser, he slid out of his dressing gown. It was another action made inelegant by his injury, he noted. But it was at least possible, because the garment was purposely oversized.

He looked back at her briefly, as if questioning this situation. He still did not honestly believe he would make love to her. There would be that 11th hour sanity and restraint. _Surely_, he thought, as he struck the match box.

As he walked to bed, he was forced to consider his shirt. His hand lingered at the top button in his painful indecision. They would never get the thing off him, given his arm's limits, once he was lying down. If it was coming off, it should come off now. But dear Lord, that still felt presumptuous of him.

"Are you too warm?" Edith asked, as if that could possibly explain why he was standing there like that. And all he would have to do then was say 'yes', and he could remove the shirt. But he paused after managing two buttons, thinking about what she would see if his shirt were removed. That obvious, but momentarily forgotten, reality had frozen him there.

Seeing his progress had stopped, Edith questioned him gently. "Anthony? Do you want help getting that off, so that you can come to bed?"

"No. I've – I've thought better of it. Given my scars. I don't want you to... well..."

"I've seen all manner of scars, Anthony." In actual fact, given the time she had spent helping Sybil with the wounded, Edith had inadvertently seen all manner of everything. "I'll be fine," she told him gently.

"Of course. But..."

"But if you are self-conscious about it, I completely understand," she said.

Finally letting his misgivings go, he worked the last three buttons. His shirt hung open now, and she reached to grab the cuff at his left arm, instinctively. He nodded his thanks as he pulled his good arm free and then shrugged out of the shirt's shoulders.

As he sank to the mattress like a weakened man, she shushed him softly, even though he had not said a word. She was easing away his fears and doubts with her gentle tone and her hand to his face.

He saw then that Edith had a way about her like a seasoned lover. She seemed to hear the things in his head that pained and frightened him. She heard them as loudly as he did. But this woman fought them better.

"It's all right," she assured him as she pulled the covers over them. There was her small smile then. "I prefer being able to see you. I was afraid I'd try to kiss you and end up giving you a concussion. I am... well, I'm fairly new to this. But it's all right," she told him. "With you here, everything is all right."

She would not say it, but she worried still, because he would see tonight as a decision. And he feared decisions, Edith now knew. Especially those that risked anyone else at all.

She couldn't cajole him, prompt him, plead with him. She should wait that little bit longer and let him make his peace with chance and uncertainty.

But feeling how tense his muscles were under her hands, she told him one last thing. "It is safer to do nothing about what is between us, but please... don't let that be your choice."

Already Anthony was pulling her tighter and kissing along her neck before she had even finished her thought.

He would make this right, he told himself; what he had done, what he was doing now. He was the problem; he could be the remedy. Couldn't he?

He loved her, understood her. And yet, at a time like this, when she wished him to make love to her, he did not understand her quite as well as he wished to. But he wanted to believe what she had said. Everything was all right, he tried to reassure himself. Or it would be, by morning.

As she registered his kisses along her neck, the breath she had drawn in came out slow and stuttered with the emotion of having waited so long.

"Oh, dear. Oh dear. Oh dear."

There was so much to take in. The light scrape of his beard, given the lateness of the hour. The smell of him, his soap. The feel of tight muscles, and of the coarse hair across his chest. It was all so nearly overwhelming, an assault on every sense. And that was before he'd even touched her in earnest.

She heard herself gasp and start when his fingertips grazed from her neck to her covered breast. It all felt so natural, and yet so very, very strange.

He was shirtless, bare to the waist. And that simple reality still amazed her. She wanted desperately to touch him. Still shyness threatened to keep her from knowing him as fully as she wanted. Her hand shook as she dared trace the line of his spine and the tautness of his shoulders.

She had not known a man could be so affected. She had believed what little she had heard: that these matters made them ungoverned, their pleasure coming only with a completion they could not regulate or postpone.

But this man shuddered under her attentions and pulled in a halting breath. This man eased his hand across her skin with restraint and something near reverence.

"I can't stand to have you unhappy," he told her. "To know that I am the one who has done that." His brain was racing even as he kissed her and skimmed the line of her side. Could he fix the days that had gone before with his touch and with this night? And with tomorrow? Could he make things better with all the tomorrows he could manage after that?

On his side as he was, he was able to caress her, to feel that the deplorable state of his right arm did not handicap him too much. But as she eased to her back so that he could truly make love to her, he suddenly felt like a turtle unable to right itself. He could not push himself up without a struggle. He would never be able to hold his weight, even if he could maneuver over her.

He groaned, and she heard the frustration in it. He moved to lie on his back in his consternation, his eyes shut tightly against the indignity of not knowing how he might manage the act.

He did not have long to wonder or suffer. There was a shift to the mattress. Her hands skimming across his chest before they came to rest on either side of his pillow. And after a confused and cautious tangle, her legs settled against his.

"Kiss me?" she wondered, as their eyes finally met.

His three tender kisses trailed gradually from her mouth to the open neck of her nightgown. Her reaction gave him the confidence in his decision that he needed.

"I will kiss you wherever you might allow me," he told her softly, his lips against her skin. His hand shifted, from where it was teasing across a breast, to cup her bottom. And his strong grasp hinted at pulling her up and towards him. She eased forward finally as she let go of her indecision.

She found his right hand and gently raised it so that it could be at her hip. At first, she wasn't sure why she had done it.

But there was some clarity that came with this madness, Edith decided. Tonight they would be honest, be naked literally and emotionally before each other. She had no idea whether it could be like this for any other couple on earth, but for her, tonight, the sense of understanding was undeniable. And she would not pretend that his arm was not there. She would not pretend that the infirmity did not exist.

He drew in a ragged breath as he registered the soft current of feeling from that damaged hand. She had his fingers at her hip, slipping them easily under the edge of her nightgown. She felt him contract his hand just that tiny bit. The motion was feeble perhaps, but it was very real. Blessedly unafraid.

"I love you," she reminded him. _All of you._ That was the thought that lived in her.

His answer was to suckle harder at her breast. To moan at the sensation – the satisfaction – of having her at his lips.

She began to keen, to pull in panicked little breaths at the feeling, until she made him stop.

"Too much?" he asked.

"I ... I honestly don't know," she admitted.

"You should... want it... being touched. If I am doing it correctly," he said softly as he rubbed his cheek against her chest.

"I do. I want you to... Just..."

He blew out a quiet breath, like a runner who was reining in his stride, and then hummed against her skin.

"Tell me... what you like." And he laid open-mouthed kisses to her skin as he palmed across her covered breast. On his honor as a gentleman (if he could claim such a thing anymore), she would not regret this night, he told himself.

"Oh, Anthony. Just like... just like..."

"Gently then," he murmured, as he continued.

Gently, yes. But he wanted her up a little higher so he could kiss still more of her. He wanted to excite her fully, to see her pleased and removed from herself. He never wanted her to equate loving him with feeling wretched again.

His hand was at her bottom again, urging her to kneel up. His mouth continued to trail lower.

There was the anxiety and the thrill of it. He would stop if she asked him, she knew. Dear God, she should tell him no lower. But how _surreal_ it felt. She had hoped the physical side to things would be good. She hadn't known it could be quite like this.

His hand was at her pants, pressing through the fabric, working in a firm circle. And his tongue was searching under the edge of those last bits of clothing. When the pressure was not quite what she needed, she found herself pushing toward him. Gripping him tighter and pressing her hips just slightly, lest he notice how wanton and demanding she had become. She whined when even that was not enough.

"So close," he encouraged, knowingly. "Show me, please?"

And with a shamed little cry she coaxed his mouth to where his fingers had teased in circles. And then the shame was gone, when she saw how eagerly he wanted to be exactly there.

A finger worked inside her pants to stroke her. And he thrilled at finding her hot and wet. He needed that satisfaction, learning that he could move her.

It came then, the gentle rhythm of her hips against his touch. He hoped she knew then what he did: that it was among life's most perfect gifts to want and be wanted.

If he was to let his fingers show her something of what it would be to have him inside her, he should do it now, he knew. She was so close to coming undone. There would be no tension, no nerves over the intrusion. And hopefully, some pleasure.

She sank into him and seemed to encourage him further. In another moment there was her little wound-up cry let loose. She went weak against him and brought her chest to rest against his.

"Good, Edith?"

"Mmmm. Very good."

He kissed her then, and listened most happily to the sound of her sighs. And when he heard her little laugh, he laughed as well. "What is it, my darling?"

"We know at least that _this – tonight – _is right, between us."

Anthony saw the reference after a moment.

"I do not think _this_..." he began with a grin she could hear. "Well, I _hope_ that all of this was not what Millicent had in mind when she said we should not ignore what is _right_ between us."

/


	13. Chapter 13

_Thank you all so much for continuing to read. I do hope that even those who feel this sort of thing is OOC for our pair are still reading – if only so I can explain. I know that these things seem out of character. But it is that challenge (making the implausible plausible) that I wanted to undertake. I wanted to highlight that change in people that allows the almost unthinkable to happen. Although these events might be rare, people will do things that are not in keeping with who people think they are. So, what does it take for that to happen? _

_I wanted to write about an Edith who was so changed by the war and the long and unsettling process of becoming her own woman that she no longer worried quite so much about marriage. I wanted her in search of bigger truths. Finally, being told things were hopeless by the man she was truly in love with could make her re-look her priorities. And I wanted an Anthony that was just different enough – just adrift enough now – that he was caught up by what Edith was going through. I paint him as so hampered by inaction that he can no longer conduct his life the way he would have normally before the war. It is a sort of shocking leap forward that rights him – that gives him back his courage. He is letting Edith drive, figuratively and literally, because in this crisis sort of state, they both seem to need that. He is still Anthony though. He is still a thoroughly decent man and he still knows where he wants to go in the end. He has not changed **that** much._

_But he is my Anthony. And although I love him dearly, he is prone to getting things backwards. Thinking what should be said (instead of just saying it) and, occasionally, saying the wrong thing. _

_When I thought about what I wanted this story to be about, it was these pivotal chapters (11,12,13) that were the most critical. Do let me know if I have managed something vaguely right._

_Warnings apply, although I have endeavored to keep things tasteful. _

* * *

><p>He urged her to sleep as they moved to lie on their sides together. But she felt the firmness that was warm and strangely enticing against her.<p>

"But what about you? About me... pleasing you?" she asked quietly.

"Do not think for a moment," he said, almost giddy, "that I am not quite pleased with myself."

"You must know what I mean. Don't tease me," she said, suddenly feeling unreasonably shy.

"Listen to me, please..." There was so much he had to tell her. About the future. About how loved she was and how possible things seemed tonight.

"No," she gently insisted. "Later, you can tell me anything. But just now..."

She smiled at him. Trailed her fingers slowly down, all the way from his chest to his thigh.

He couldn't think. Her fingers were circling now at the top of his pajama trousers as if she wanted to touch him most intimately. Just that sense of expectation, wondering 'Will she? Won't she?' was making him want her so ridiculously. He had not been this aroused in years.

And she sensed that, sought to move them down that road. Sought to use the power she was thrilled to find she had.

"If you were to get up," she whispered, "and then come back to bed... if you were to lie down again – with us in the proper order, so to say..."

He wanted to laugh, despite her earnestness, despite the desire that he felt. "It would seem this will be more difficult than shifting gears."

"Perhaps, you will enjoy it more, though," she teased back as she stroked his arm. "I want you to enjoy it. I want to do this quite properly. Please."

He kissed her and paused as if marking time.

"Should we..." she ventured more nervously, her hand at the hem of her night dress. "Should we take this off me?"

"Yes. Please, Edith," came his suddenly strong, clear voice.

"Help me?"

And he did. He helped her ease the garment over her hips, and his eyes locked on hers soothed the trepidation that had made her pause. Together then, they had the thing off her. He pushed the nightgown toward the floor as he leaned forward to kiss her reassuringly.

Anthony extricated himself from the bed and quickly stepped out of his trousers while she removed the last of her clothing. He approached her just as she was sitting up to welcome him. He reached past her to take his weight on his left hand. Carefully then, she maneuvered his right arm to mimic that. And as she leaned back again, she raised a hand to his ribs to help support him.

"If we are to do this _'properly,'_ you have to know, Edith..."

Her hand came up to stroke his face, "Shhh, please, Anthony."

He turned his head so that he could kiss the palm of her hand. "No. Listen, darling." She nodded solemnly, now hearing something distinct and compelling in his tone. "In my heart, I am married to you."

And his kiss was on her then. Full, but gentle. Somehow affirming. It all provoked such a flurry in her, until her thoughts were racing; a hundred of them, barely formed.

Want made him press against her, eager for the warmth. She lifted against him in reply, communicating how much she needed this, too.

"Your knee," he whispered. Had he the use of his hand, it would have been more delicate to use his touch to ease her legs apart. But they had what they had tonight. "Just at my hip." And as he settled against her most intimately, he groaned and, finally, smiled.

"Like _that_?" she wondered, quite sincerely. Although she had her suspicion that it was just right.

"Oh, my dear. Yes." And after a pause, he whispered anxiously, "Do you want me... Truly want...?"

"Yes. So much."

"If I hurt you..."

She stroked his face and smiled up at him. "Please. Just this once, let me worry more about me than you do. I know you'd never want to hurt me. You're so careful. Sometimes, Anthony, you're almost _too_ careful," she added sweetly.

He kissed her, a quiet growl in his throat. The motion of his hips communicated how urgent things had become. He needed her help, though. Would she know? "I, ah, just..."

And she guided him quite ably, making him shiver through.

The whole of existence shrunk them to be just that nudge of his hips – that question between them. And at last there was her lifting from the mattress in response. And letting go his restraint, he was inside her.

He worried when she stilled beneath him. There was a gasp, as if she'd held her breath too long, and her fingers gripped his chest quite fiercely. But she coiled and pressed to him then, and he felt such relief. And a flood of desire to move all the more.

"Don't stop," she encouraged hoarsely.

In a measured way, he continued gently over her. It was all stunning to her. Lovely, but completely overwhelming. He felt the same things, but couldn't name the feelings at all. He'd lost himself to the sensation of her and the sound in his ear of her eager panting. Hearing her respond to him became so necessary that it allowed him to abandon reason.

She cried out differently now, and he opened his eyes to see her loll her head as if confused. He hoped it was pleasure, that final satisfying pleasure, that had ahold of her.

She surprised him. Lifted against him as if craving more of him. He groaned with her then, and sensation claimed him. Finished him. In a rare and sudden way.

It had all been quick and, he hoped, not too horrible for her. He fairly shook above her. But he feared his weight on her must be too much, and he told her so.

"I can't explain," she said. "You aren't too heavy. It's wonderful." Her arms enfolded him, and he relaxed enough to linger a moment longer. But he remained self-conscious about how out of breath he continued to be. About how he could not support himself to keep from crushing her.

"I'd best..." he started, and she understood. It involved them both, shifting him. Even handled together, the process lacked grace. Nothing in her manner showed she minded, and he was no longer surprised to see that goodness from her.

He was at her side now, and his hand sought hers.

There was a long, wary quiet, a fog that buoyed a thousand thoughts. He wanted desperately to speak, to say the important things that he needed her to hear, but he simply could not manage it. Physically and mentally, it seemed too difficult.

Edith smiled faintly. She looked about to tell him something, and he was compelled to stop her. He couldn't lose this moment. Couldn't let her doubt. He put a finger to her lips.

"I will marry you. If that is what you want," he said too formally, and with no better prelude. "I will make it as easy on you as I can. I don't expect you to be saddled with me. With my care. You can be as free as you want. If you still want to go to university... or anywhere. You needn't..."

For a moment, there was only her silence and his expectation. Then a stiffness overtook her and she shifted just a bit away. "That may be the worst proposal on record," she told him at last. "Not that I would know." She sat up and moved to retrieve her nightgown. She was on her feet then, pulling the garment roughly over her head.

"Edith." He struggled to sit up, then tried in vain to reach for her. "You have me at a disadvantage. Wait!" he implored her. He was able to get himself upright, and he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, making sure to tug at the blankets to cover himself.

She silently retrieved his pajama bottoms and handed them to him.

"You needn't feel obligated to marry me. Not just because of... this. I wasn't trying to trap you, or trick you into proposing," she told him quietly, but intently.

"I know. But I am trying to do right by you. Can't you let me do that?"

"By offering me the convenience of your name with little further involvement?" she accused.

He shook his head. "No. By telling you that marriage could be what you need it to be. I will not see the life drained from you because you are stuck with me and my limitations out at the estate."

"Oh, your limitations are not so severe, Anthony." And unconsciously at that moment she was untangling his pajamas and arranging them so he could more easily step into them.

He laughed bitterly. "And yet you feel compelled to help me with my trousers!"

"Not so very much help. You make it seem such an imposition."

Blushing with indignation, he wrestled the pajama bottoms on and began to pull them higher as he stood. She stepped closer, deciding that being helped was likely less horrific for him than being left exposed too long.

"And you needn't wear pajamas that tie," she almost seemed to be scolding as she tied the strings in a bow. "It would still be adjustable if there was a tab here. And the fabric looped back. Maybe two buttons here," she ruminated, her hand stroking near his hip. "A bit of elastic would not be amiss."

There was a long pause as they registered how good it felt to have her touch him.

"It is not all so easy, Edith," he said lowly then. "You can't just make every problem disappear. There is my tie. And my socks..."

She stepped away to signal her disbelief. "You feel compelled to avoid marriage or to make the most passionless proposal imaginable, because you have difficulty with your socks?"

It hadn't seemed quite that ridiculous when he had formed the thought.

"These problems are very real to me," he tried to explain. "I was used to being a capable, _physical_ sort of man. And even if you will not admit that the war and age have slowed me now, you must admit that I will only get slower. And far sooner than you deserve."

"Your limitations did not prevent you from…" her eyes scanned the bed and she gave it a nod of her head. "I had thought men put such high stock in that," she almost accused. "And yet you focus on the trivial. If being with me..." she gestured feebly at the bed again, "had no effect on you; if it did not make you see that there was joy in life... Dear God, if I can't make you forget your blasted socks, well, then I am not very much of a woman, I fear. And we _would _make a very poor couple."

"Come here, please?" he said, feeling such self-reproach. He sat on the bed again and tugged at her hand to have her sit beside him. "I'm sorry. I have never, never had any ability with words. With knowing quite what to say, or when, or even how. I have the best of intentions, please believe me. I just make a mess of explaining myself. Will you forgive me? Please?"

She nodded.

"You can't think that I didn't enjoy our night," he whispered. "I've wanted to kiss you like that and touch you for so long. If it was in any way not-what-I-would-have-wished, that is only because of me. Because of what _I_ am capable of."

"A woman knows not to expect her first night to be wonderful. But it _was_ wonderful, Anthony. It felt so good. And... wanton." She was blushing now, head down. "So indulgent."

"Things weren't too clumsy?" he asked, pushing gently at her hair.

"No."

"But it was awkward?"

"Of course it was awkward. It was just our first time!" she fired back.

"You are so forgiving. So beautiful."

"I'm not, you know."

"Can we get back into bed?" he pleaded.

"Yes. All right."

She climbed in and held the covers for him. And finally she was settled with his arm about her again, her head comfortably on his chest.

"You said you love me, Edith. Could that really be true? Could it still be true?"

"Yes," she told him simply.

"If it makes any sense, Edith, my dear: I would not have made such a hash of this if I did not love you so much."

"Oh, please, Anthony. Just say that properly?"

"I love you?"

"Yes. That part."

"I love you, Edith. Truly. And I want to marry you, if you think I could make you happy. We've put the cart before the horse..."

"Because I wanted to so badly," she interrupted. "I don't know if you can see it the way I did. But it almost had to be all backwards for us to get where we are going. Things were that broken. I don't think they are anymore, though."

"Are you saying that you'll marry me, Edith?"

"I will. I have done already, in a manner of speaking. As you said, 'In my heart...'"

"Yes."

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

_thank you, dancesabove_


	14. Chapter 14

_**A/N: I am behind, horribly behind on thanking folks for reading and reviewing. I offer you this small chapter as recompense. It was going to be longer and sexier but my brain stopped. short. I've noticed this more lately now that we are back to school. I had always worried that I would come to the point with our lives where I got in the car and would not remember which kid needed to be quite where just then. I am so there. On the upside, I was told I was funny twice today. I left my worry that they meant funny-peculiar unvoiced. Worries are more easily forgotten than realities.**_

* * *

><p>An uneasy Anthony dismissed the footman, once he saw that breakfast was well laid out in the morning room. And then he began to pace anew.<p>

Edith walked in a moment later, and the pair found themselves noticeably, palpably alone. Anthony immediately felt ridiculously flummoxed. He realized that he had opened his mouth to greet her with the customary 'good morning' owed to anyone who might come through the door. But Edith was not anyone. And 'good morning' seemed a strange way to hail her, suddenly, when they had spent the night so very together. It would have been simply too strange, given that they had parted only two hours previous. And had taken their sweet time in fixing each other's clothes as they lingered by her bedside.

Was she remembering it all as well? he wondered.

She looked away a full and awkward second after their eyes met.

He coughed.

She recovered more quickly, and managed to tell him, quite brazenly, "It is so good to see you looking so well this morning." It was boldly delivered, with teasing, sarcastic eyes. Boldly delivered, despite a hint of nervous color in her cheeks. She continued walking toward him just as bravely.

He laughed into her hair as she closed those last inches as determinedly as she had those first few feet. His words then were halting, but tinged with his amusement over her well-played sangfroid. "Oh, my dear. I do love you, Edith."

"Feeling sheepish?" she asked with a shaky smile.

"Yes." He seemed relieved to admit it.

"I am, as well. I won't lie."

"A lot has happened," he confirmed.

They both knew that it was not just what they had done: the sex, the betrothal. There had been the feeling of subterfuge, which had not fit at all with the joy of waking up together. There had been the need to get him back to his room. Her blush over the state of the sheets. And that capable gentleman's insistence that she let him handle that... well, all but the actual remaking of the bed. He needed her help for that, he had told her. But he knew the house well enough to find a sheet to replace the one that had suffered a bit. _"Trust me," _he had whispered_._

Standing with him now, she began to see there was more on his mind than last night. There was another reason for his manner. He pulled at the inside pocket of his coat to retrieve something, in what seemed like slow motion.

"I want you to have this, Edith. I don't think it the right thing to give you at all," he said apologetically. "I would rather give you… but perhaps _this_ will mean something to you as a sort of promise. And you will know... that you are everything to me. That I will do _anything_... Forget my months of wobbling. Believe in me."

"Of _course_ I believe in you!" she insisted quickly as she took what he offered her.

Edith carefully pried open the crisp leather case. "Anthony!" she blurted out in astonishment. It was a medal. A gold cross, the front of which was enameled white. There was the laurel and the crown. She knew what this was immediately. A Distinguished Service Order.

"Anthony, how could none of us have known? A DSO?! You most assuredly have not told me the whole of what happened the day you were wounded. That much I know."

"It is not a pleasant story," he told her quietly. "No short way to explain the whole of the day, really. And I have just come to leave out the confusing bits. But we came across the Van Doos after we were wounded. A platoon of them, who had lost their lieutenant. There was some wrinkling of noses at my French."

"Your French is _lovely_..."

"Not to a tradesman from Quebec, I'm afraid. But I have an eye for terrain," he allowed. "For knowing the ground. And we held the Germans there. Apparently," he said, ducking his head, "it could have been a very costly rout if we hadn't."

"And … And _why_ are you carrying this around?"

"I didn't bring it to London by accident. I was hoping it would spur me to some sort of courage or... or I was going to throw the damn thing in the Thames," he admitted. "But I want you to have it. So that you _know_... So that you trust that I..."

"I do trust you, Anthony."

"And it will be as soon as propriety allows. Getting married, I mean. We are agreed on that," he whispered at her ear. "Yes?"

"Yes, after we see Mary and Matthew safely married."

There was the blessedly slow and noisy opening of the door then, and Millie interrupted them in her practiced way.

"Good morning," she sang. "It is a good morning. Isn't it?" She froze where she stood and blatantly eyed them almost pleadingly then for some sign. It was Anthony who relented, who relieved his cousin's anxiety.

"I believe it is the best of mornings. But... Edith can tell you if that is true." He half-turned, as if to consider the buffet.

It was her news to share, he was telling Edith with the gentle, open look on his face. And if she did not want Millicent to know just yet, then that was her decision.

"We're engaged... to be married." A nervous Edith had added the last bit as if somehow worried the statement needed explaining.

"And he's made a present of his medal to you," the older woman replied, with a nod toward what she held. Anthony blushed. "No, Anthony. I think it a _dear _thing to do. I'm not teasing you. I'm so ridiculously happy for you. For the both of you. You have no idea!"

But Edith _did_ know how pleased the news had made the elder woman. It was so beautifully plain to see.

Edith knew then why she had so readily confided in her. It was the genuine, selfless glee in Millicent's expression. There was such warmth and good wishes in the way she held her arms wide now, and walked toward the pair.

The corners of Edith's mouth began to creep further up, until she found she was literally grinning in reply. There would be none of this at Downton. And with Lady Ridley and Anthony on her side, perhaps that was all right.


	15. Chapter 15

_**A/N:** Thank you all for continuing to read this story. You've been very kind and encouraging. Staggering, really. The love you have shown Edith and Anthony is just staggering. This fic just might pass the reviews my Anna/Bates story has - and that is something the folks who write this show should consider. There is a certain **something** to this couple. And we need more of them. That said - send me no spoilers - I am living in "radio silence" (as we termed it in the Army) while I wait for the show to get on a boat and be picked up by my local PBS station._

_Thanks to dancesabove for the talented eyeballs._

* * *

><p>There was so much swirling in her head that Edith was unsure what she should do that day. But in talking with Anthony and Millie over breakfast, she decided it would be best if she called on her aunt that morning. That sort of courtesy might make the trip seem less... well, sordid and impulsive.<p>

It was early in the conversation with her aunt that Edith decided the woman was clearly pursuing an agenda. It was not that Rosamund seemed willing to be deceived, Edith thought. More, it was as if the woman _demanded_ that she be sold a certain story. To her aunt, the entire trip gave off the appearance that Edith was making inquiries in London because she was planning on living there with _James_.

"You are making a study of London?" Rosamund trilled, a flash to her eyes. "It's almost as if you have plans to relocate here. If I am to guess, you will be looking for a house nearer the hospital than mine." The older woman had a practiced and conspiratorial lilt to her voice that stopped Edith for a second.

"Really, I'm _not _house hunting. I just..." the young woman tried to insist.

Her aunt smiled then. Knowingly. And let another length of pavement pass beneath them before she continued what Edith could only term a thinly veiled assault.

"I think you have done quite well for yourself, Edith. I know he is a doctor," Rosamund said a tad dismissively, "but the family is an old one. They may not be as flush as they once were, but all in all – it's a good match for you."

"James is a _wonderful_ man, but please, don't jump to conclusions, Aunt Rosamund."

The older woman smiled. Pursed her lips. "You've walked us by St. Andrew's, quite purposely, I should think. If you are going to be married out of my house or Grantham House – which I think is a lovely idea – that is not the easiest church..."

"All of this is very premature. Please, we shouldn't..."

But Edith's attempts not to be misunderstood were met with an obvious impatience.

"Do you have an understanding with James? Or a hint of something, perhaps?" Rosamund pressured.

"Really. I need to go. I'm expected for a late luncheon with a friend."

"James's family, perhaps?" her aunt asked, as she laid a restraining hand on Edith. Her lips twisted with amusement.

Edith could not contain her consternation. She knew it was hopelessly written on her face, and so she fixated on her shoes. Were her mother present, she would be admonishing her not to roll her eyes. "Please. No." And deciding a little honesty would likely hurt nothing, Edith raised her head to say, "I am meeting with Lady Millicent Ridley."

"Ridley…" Rosamund said slowly, trying to place any connection. "Ridley?"

"She is the friend of a friend, shall we say."

Rosamund liked this answer, as she was sure this confirmed that James Grant was part of the equation. "And Lady Millicent shares an interest in... the Royal Geographical Society?" The woman asked this as if the RGS was some sort of code for a romantic assignation.

/ / / / / /

Anthony had gone out while Edith was off visiting her aunt. When he returned, he found only Millicent in the morning room.

"Is Edith back?" he asked, skipping any proper greeting and sounding a tad impatient.

"She is," Millie said as she put down the paper. "She's upstairs getting things ready for her trip back tomorrow. Are you _sure_ the two of you need to leave so soon?"

"I'll just... I'm going to go speak with her," Anthony said, in a strange and nervously happy voice. He headed for the stairs.

Pushing up from her chair, Millicent had to struggle to keep up with him.

"I'm going out now myself. To see a friend," she nearly had to yell after him. "Anthony? At least tell me you hear me."

"That's fine."

She continued to chase him. "And when I get back, you can take us all out for dinner!"

"Perfect!" he called back as he took the first stair.

And all the stairs after that – all that Millicent could see – he took two at a time. She was sure the besotted dear would never make it to the third floor like that. But for at least that instant, he was the long-legged boy she had known years ago. Strong and happy. The fastest one through the tall grass. The one with that beautiful, silly smile. And the world had Edith to thank for that.

/ / / / / / /

Edith answered the insistent knock at her door. Through necessity she stepped backwards as Anthony's eager steps brought him in to embrace her. But she watched his face change quite inexplicably a moment later.

"You seem worried, Anthony." Her concern was in her voice and in the hands that lovingly travelled his face.

"Actually, I am feeling quite decisive." He drew in a decent breath at last. "Well, decisive... _and_ a tad winded," he added in apologetic fashion.

Anthony rallied then. Smiled for her. He locked the door behind them, kissed her, both softly and sweetly, while he waited for his pulse to settle a tad. Beaming down at her, he let her pet at him.

He tried hard not to be distracted, but the feel of her against him was entirely intoxicating. And this new man – the one whose brain fairly hummed now with the memory of her bravely wanting him – having him – the night before. That man gave in and kissed her soundly.

With a mind that had become more sure and tactical, he assessed the chair on the far side of the room – and found it to be perfect.

Edith hummed a question into his kiss as he guided her towards it. "What about the servants?"

"Gone. They have a half-day. We are eating dinner out tonight," came his husky reply.

"Millicent?"

"Out," he lobbed back.

"Your man?" she asked, in between kisses.

"Chasing about town, I would imagine. I hope he finds a lovely girl..."

"Anthony?!" Really, he was acting quite strangely. She was enjoying all of it, but it was nonetheless odd.

They had come to a halt as her skirt brushed the chair he had steered her to. The look in his eyes suddenly set her pulse on edge. Would he want to... pursue something... make love to her in this unconventional way – in this sunlit room?

"Will you let me?" he couldn't help but ask as he fingered the buttons at her chest. He wanted – _needed_ – that glimpse of skin, the rosy flush his touch could cause just there. "Oh, Edith," he whispered as the blouse yielded to his out-of-practice fingers and the simple cotton gave up the hint, that tantalizing rise, of her chest.

He heard her breath quicken and felt the way her hands tightened at his back. _Dear God, she wants me, too,_ he thought as a disorienting thrill ran through him.

But the weight in his coat made him appraise things between caresses.

Abruptly then, he stopped. "Please. Sit down, Edith, dear. "

He gripped the chair and sank to kneel in front of her. He paused to appreciate the gasp that came from her then. And emboldened, he indulged himself, allowing his hand to land almost possessively at her ankle. His fingers trailed up and down slowly. Until he shook his head and made himself quit the sweet torture of it.

Now, his borrowed calm in place, he gripped her hand to squeeze it. Kiss it. He met her eyes and was surprised to see the question in them. _How could she not understand why he was kneeling here before her?_

"You need a proper proposal," he explained, a hint of humor in his voice. "Something other than the mess I made of things last night."

"I remember last night in _exceptional_ detail, Anthony," she teased. "I find no fault in any of it. And believe me, I have reviewed it a hundred times today."

He waited, enjoying the blush she had caused herself.

"Still. You will be asked to recount it. Not," he stammered quickly, "not recount what happened last night." She was smiling now, and his unease melted away. "I mean, your friends and relations will ask you how I _proposed_." He grinned now, but ducked his head, a trifle ashamed at his giddy behavior. "You cannot tell people that I _rolled over_ and then popped the question."

"You didn't even manage it as a proper question," she pretended to accuse.

"Now, you can tell them, 'He came to my room…'" he began to weave the story.

"'Scandalous,' some will say."

"'And he had me sit while he knelt in front of me.'"

"Sit..." she clarified, "in case I might swoon?"

"To save my old neck more strain," he joked.

There was still that proper proposal to manage. But his chest swelled with a sated sort of elation as she laughed with him. There was a sense of being so completely in sync, so in love, that he could do nothing but kiss her.

It was as if he were merely following a wave as that kiss ended. It was something that felt completely unaccustomed. But he allowed the feeling to take him. And he travelled with it.

His voice came at its own bidding suddenly. A young, full voice told her, "Edith? There is just one more thing." He fished in his pocket. The box he gave her contained a filigree brooch made of silver, in a large diamond shape. "It opens," was all he said next, as she lightly fingered the pin. "It is like a locket."

Her look was unabashedly curious and thrilled as she pried the clasp. Inside there was the most lovely, delicate ring.

In time to the thudding she felt rise to her throat, she heard his words. "Please, Edith. I have no right to expect this sort of happiness. But I want it so desperately. Tell me 'yes,' if I make you happy, too?"

She kissed him carefully, as if the world were too fragile, and whispered 'yes,' no fewer than five times. Together then they slipped the ring onto her finger.

"Why the brooch?" she asked quietly at last. He helped gather the fabric of her blouse so she could secure the locket – just above her heart – before he answered.

"I know you cannot wear the ring. Not until we've talked with your parents. And I know you want to wait until after Mary and Matthew are married."

"Yes. I thought it the considerate thing to do."

"And you are right," he told her with a supportive smile. "But this way you can wear the brooch and also the ring... just not on your finger. It will mean the world to me to see it there, to know you've accepted me."

With his task done, his earlier thoughts and desires began to return. She smiled at him a bit crookedly, as if she could read his mind.

His hand palmed then over her skirt, pressing firmly at her hip. His thumb lingered over her most intimate places before he moved to slowly to tease her breast.

He wanted to be closer to her, to feel her chest against his. She understood. By silent agreement, her dress was hiked as he moved now to snug in to be between her knees. Her breath hitched as she felt his smile ghost across her skin.

"Thank God you aren't wearing that skirt from yesterday. That tight thing... I can't believe any man would design a skirt like that," he complained under his breath.

"Anthony!" she scolded, with an amusement he did not catch.

"Sorry." He ducked his head a moment in contrition. Had he ruined the mood with the comment? They were such new lovers, he couldn't know.

She was pushing at him now to get a look at him.

But she was not dismissing him, he quickly decided. Reassured, he pressed his cheek to her chest, and he felt the material beneath his face give way – and slide – as she opened one more button there.

Her hands then reached for his collar. "Don't," he whispered gently as she fingered the knot at his neck.

"No?"

"Unless you can tie a proper knot in a man's tie..." he whispered.

"I can, actually. You can't think you are the first man I've dressed or undressed," she added wickedly.

He looked puzzled.

"At Downton. When the nurses were busy? Well, I would help... with things."

Her hands travelled lower, coming to rest at last on the button of his trousers.

He leaned to her and then grinned into her neck. A quick laugh escaped him. And a warm euphoria worked through him to find her wanting him. "Once we are married, properly married, I will _never_ complain about your helping with my trousers. But... we'll wait."

"Mmm. Wait?"

"Last night. You needed me to stay. To hold you?"

"Yes."

"You needed me to trust you, and what you wanted. What you needed," he said almost shyly.

"Yes."

"And I wanted to prove it all to you. We had rather arrived at the point where words were wasted. As if time had run out."

"Oh. Exactly," she stressed.

"But we will wait. There will be no sneaking around. Nothing to affect your reputation. No risk that you'll become pregnant before the right time."

Her expression changed in that moment. He moved away and turned his head to study her. "What is it, Edith?"

"It all became so very... _real_ just now. I'm sorry."

"Second thoughts?" he asked intently.

"Only good ones." She paused then. Searched his eyes and realized what she saw. "You can really picture it all. A future. Years of it? Children, even?"

"Yes," he assured her easily. He eased her forward to lean on him as he moved back to rest on his heels. He wanted so desperately to feel her against him. To feel her relying on him.

"We'll end up on the floor," she warned as she struggled with her balance.

"Perhaps that's my plan."

"And you'll let me help you up?"

"Oh, eventually."


	16. Chapter 16

**_A/N: Thank you all for continuing to read and for the lovely support. Edith and Anthony would send their thanks as well, however, they are very busy concealing their relationship... and well, canoodling. _**

**_This chapter is a salute to that thrilling, blind, fleeting stage of love where we are so very sure we are discreet. Thank you dancesabove._**

* * *

><p>A half-hour later, Edith and Anthony silently and lovingly assessed each other on the upstairs landing. Her skirt was smoothed down, he noted, with an appraising hand to her hip.<p>

His hair was fixed – pleasingly, she thought, with the faintest smile – if not fixed quite properly.

They had been a true couple, married – in spirit and body, if not in law – for less than a day now. But already they had their teases, their shared secrets. All those things that communicated their want of each other. The normally reserved Edith was fairly drunk with it that afternoon. Standing there, she needlessly reached up as if to straighten his tie, and with that new, womanly smile, she was telegraphing just how much she would rather be taking him to bed.

"We are going to have to work on this, Edith," Anthony observed, after a swallow to steel himself.

"What?" she asked with innocence.

"Millie is not blind, nor addled. She is a woman with a married daughter... and she will take one look at you, at _us_, when you put your hand on me that way, and she will lecture me thoroughly and drag us bodily to the marriage registrar."

"I'm being that transparent?" she asked, lifting her hands from him quite suddenly.

He cleared his throat. "Painfully so. Edith. Darling. When you look at me like that, I am... well, reminded of last night..." He leaned close and whispered in her ear, "and how much I would like to repeat it."

"You aren't helping," she said as she tugged at the ear he had set to tingling. "I would do better if I had pockets, I suppose. Some place I could put my rather traitorous hands."

He laughed. "You have a way of being so enticingly... 'traitorous.' I need to keep telling myself that I _should_ mind."

She made a show of standing well clear of him as they moved for the stairs.

"Safer topics?" she said by way of suggestion.

"I never asked you how your day went. With your aunt," he said, sounding apologetic as they headed down.

"Oh. Well, amazing, really. She has managed to guess the whole of our plans and everything behind this visit."

He stopped abruptly. "She hasn't!"

"Well, Aunt Rosamund did get one bit wrong," Edith said, with a laugh and a smile that reached her eyes. "She thinks your name is _James_. She was sure I was house-hunting, looking for something near the hospital... which leads me to ask, where do you think we might end up, Anthony?"

"I know you won't be happy to be out at the estate, living a provincial sort of existence... not all year long." He stopped her on the next landing with a light touch to her arm. "Let me tell you what your mother said to me: 'We had our day. We need to give these young people the chance to have _theirs_.'" Anthony smiled then, no longer at all bothered by the words that Cora had used in her attempt to wound him. "Edith, _nothing_ could make me happier than getting to see you take on the world. Making the most of your day. It is not at all what your mother had in mind when she told me all of that..."

"Well, she will have to live with the result," Edith joked.

"I want to be _right there_ with you, whatever it is you want to do. And if that is university, we could live here in town."

"What sort of place, do you think?"

"Anywhere."

"And we'd visit Millicent quite regularly?" she asked, with a crooked grin she tried to hide.

"Of course." He leaned against the railing then and looked about, as if assessing the place. "She'd even let us have the third floor to ourselves if we wanted it. Permanently. Why?"

"Well. You make the most wonderful decisions when you are here."

"So very _traitorous_," he pretended to grumble. He smiled over the word that had come to be their symbol of shared complaint over their enforced restraint.

/ / / /

Dinner was wonderful for its simplicity, Edith thought. She loved being out with Anthony; being able walk on his arm. To wear his ring. To feel a part of this small family. Edith was sure no one had ever listened to wedding plans as enthusiastically as Millie. Or been so easy to talk to.

Late that evening, after she was dressed for bed, Edith listened for the sound of Lawrence leaving their floor. With a grin, she stole across the hall to knock on Anthony's door.

"I shan't let you in," he teased as he filled the doorway.

"Of course not," she replied with pretended shock. "But that just means you will have to kiss me in the hall." And he did so, in lingering fashion, but with such judicious self-discipline as he could muster.

She let up a gasp as he released her, and he could not help but smile over it.

"I'm glad you understand that it's for the best... sleeping apart," he whispered. "It would be too tempting if we said we'd try to spend the night in the same room together. We don't need another morning of worriedly trying to get one of us back to the right room before the servants are upon us."

"No, I know." Edith slowly trailed her fingers over the line of buttons on his chest. And sighed. "I've always thought long engagements perfectly normal things. But I suddenly cannot imagine spending any more nights without you than I need to. Once you _realize_ something..." she trailed off.

"What have you realized?" her love asked, as he lifted her chin gently.

"That I want to start and end my days with you. Just that. It's all that simple."

"You are the wisest woman, Edith. And I, a very lucky man."


	17. Chapter 17

_A/N: My thanks to all of you for reading. I am sorry that I haven't gotten back to folks who have been so kind as to send their reviews. Just know that I am always thrilled to hear from Edith and Anthony's supporters. Our pair feels like a group project, and I enjoy knowing there are others out there cheering for them. _

_Dancesabove fixed things. But I did meddle at the last moment. They may be damaged now. But a little sexier._

* * *

><p>The next morning Lady Millicent stood with Edith and Anthony in the foyer. The newly engaged pair seemed distracted while they waited for their cab to arrive. It was Millie who seemed the most bothered.<p>

"I'm beside myself, if you must know," Millie huffed vehemently, to no one in particular.

"What?! What have I done?" Anthony asked quickly, closing his watch.

"You were barely here. And that after being long, long overdue in visiting. Now you are off again. I am little more than a roadside stop, it would seem." She jerked her head away, as if trying to hide how upset she'd become.

"Millie! I can't let Edith go back alone. Well, I could… but I won't. And she can't stay in London any longer, when she came here without truly telling her parents beforehand, and with her sister's wedding little more than a week away. They will be meeting us at the station with pistols drawn, wondering who she is with, most likely."

"Ha!" Edith contributed as she fixed the clasp on her satchel one more time. "They won't. You know." She turned to the older woman then and spoke more appeasingly. "Millie, I do hate to leave. You have been the most welcoming and forgiving person in _all _of this. Does it help if I tell you, I would much rather stay?"

Millie's pout began to subside. "Oh, I can't be mad at you two," she finally sighed. "You _will_ stay with me again?"

"We will be right here in town, more than likely, after we are married," Edith said quite gently.

"Then why get a place of your own at all? Stay here! Half the house is shut up as it is..."

"I do know you've said we might have the top floor to ourselves. But give us a chance to settle things a bit." Anthony told his cousin in a consoling voice, a small conciliatory smile tugging his lips.

"More than anything, I simply wouldn't want to intrude," Edith offered, stepping closer to lay a hand on Millie's arm. "But I will tell you, you've quickly become one of my favorite people."

Anthony's smile widened. Finally, things seemed so right – _here,_ at least.

/ / / / / /

Edith and Anthony sat in their train compartment together, her hand rarely leaving his.

"Anthony? Would London truly make you happy?" she interjected into the silence suddenly. "What would you do if you were not trying so hard to appease me?"

Her fiancé understood her worry. He realized now that they both feared what would happen if the other sacrificed too much - and came to regret it. But he could not imagine regretting any of this. This change was something he was quite ready for. "When you decide what to do and where," he told her, "whether to go to school or to travel, I won't want you to consider me."

"Silly man," the young woman said, playfully swatting at his leg. "It sounds as if you have a bent for feminism."

He leaned close, as if he would tell her the most licentious secret. A chill ran through her as his lips brushed against her ear. "Actually, it is the most horrible paternalism. It allows me to believe that I must do what I think is best for you," he joked. "And that is letting you have your way."

She laughed over what he had done to tease her, and then asked, "What will you do in London, then? You could teach at a university. Certainly."

"I most certainly could _not_ teach!" He sounded horrified. "If you want me busy, just say so."

She turned in her seat and took ahold of his coat. "If I am to try university, you may as well join me in doing something new. It would make a nice change for us both. This friend of yours who pulled you into military intelligence. Could he find something to keep you busy here in London?"

"He might, but _why_ do you want me so distracted?"

"I worry..."

Anthony sensed the change in her. "Tell me, Edith," he pleaded gently.

Her eyes were downcast, as if she was studying his waistcoat. "I worry that if you are not kept busy enough, you will quickly notice that I love you far more than you could ever love me," she croaked.

He shook his head, quite stunned by what she'd said. "Madness, darling." He raised her chin and kissed her just at the corner of her mouth. "You will simply have to let me prove to you just how wrong you are."

Had he meant to tantalize her, she wondered. Edith's eyes flashed to the compartment door in her moment of indecision. Then the hand wound in the fabric of his coat tugged at him quite possessively.

Knowing what she wanted, he relented. And he let her kiss him quite indiscreetly.

/ / / / / /

His chauffeur met the train, but Edith insisted upon ringing Downton for a car to come for her, rather than let Anthony cause a sensation by seeing her home.

She sensed something nervous in him as they stood on the platform.

"There's no rush," he quickly told the servant who was loading his bags into the car. He walked Edith to where she could place her call.

"You'll let me know when we can talk with your parents?" he asked intently, once she'd requested that Carson send the car. He took up her hand as he whispered the words, and he held on quite tightly.

"We can continue to plan everything. But I don't want to tell them until after Mary and Matthew are married." She raised her eyebrows, suddenly seeming quite bemused. "I don't know how much more they can take."

Anthony felt compelled to guide Edith to stand behind a pillar. He moved close to the bricks and pulled her toward him.

The car was packed. His chauffeur was waiting patiently. What Anthony had to do now was completely unavoidable, but he wanted nothing to do with what the situation demanded. He was a man who had done all that had been required of him for the whole of his life. For family. For country. He'd shown that bravery that lay within him when he had needed to. But his stomach dropped away just now as he prepared to let go of Edith's hand.

This separation felt like a dire mistake. And he told her so. "Say the word, Edith, and we will get on the next train. Marry where you want. _Do _what you want. Starting now."

For a moment she wondered what had done this, unsettled him so. "You are worried about being back? That somehow I will be prevented from marrying you?" she asked him gently.

He was embarrassed that the idea of being apart, that releasing her to her family, had him thinking so irrationally. But that didn't mean that he could stop the way he felt. "There is a point when you have so much to gain, that the smallest risk seems _too much_," he tried to explain.

"Help me with this," she suggested, twisting her ring.

He thought she meant to ignore the desperateness of his comments. But as they worked together to put the ring in the compartment of her brooch, she told him, "There comes a time when you don't even see the risk, because you know that finally, _finally_, everything is going to work out exactly as it should."

She kissed him then, sequestered behind their pillar. She kissed him until she could tell with the way he kissed her back that he believed as she did.


	18. Chapter 18

_a/n: thank you for reading and for all the lovely reviews. I dedicate this chapter to anyone who has ever read (or lived) the book, Sam Sheep Can't Sleep. I got this chapter back from dancesabove and did not recognize it. Not that she changed much, it's that I was in some other level of consciousness when I wrote this apparently. Oh, well. Edith is not complaining. She enjoyed the outing so much._

_I actually enjoy much about Cora, so I am sorry if she comes off harsh here. She is under a lot of stress. Parenting is a lot of work. I suspect she is not sleeping well. God knows I likely would have run off for some 'me time' if I had to contend with those three girls. _

* * *

><p>Edith could not concoct a reason to be out of the house the next day. So instead, she threw herself into helping her mother work through the arrangements for Mary and Matthew's reception.<p>

Cora watched her, though. And Edith was all too aware of the eyes on her. The young woman waited tensely for the questions about her trip to London, but they didn't come.

In a motion she did not try to hide, Edith checked her watch while her mother assessed the arrangement of presents on the assembled tables.

Cora did not miss the action. In fact she lingered over watching her daughter and then waited just a bit more before finally asking, "Do you have something else you need to do?"

"I did want to place a call..." Edith said.

"To?"

"London," she admitted, flatly.

"To _James_," Cora pounced quickly and happily.

Edith smiled and nodded her head, hoping she looked genial about her mother's intrusions. But she did still want to look suitably 'caught out.'

"Yes. To James," the young woman told her mother. "He can be quite hard to get a hold of. He works so hard at the hospital. So... if you don't mind..."

"No. You go." Cora's expression then was so self-satisfied, so pleased and cat-like, that Edith almost felt sorry for the ruse. Almost.

She did ring James. To tell him he need not accept the invitation from Downton. To let him know that the misunderstanding they had cultivated was taking on a very large life of its own.

/ / / / / / / /

The next day at breakfast, Edith overheard a discussion about the need to pick up in town some things for the wedding. She tried not to sound too eager as she offered to make that trip in place of the new chauffeur.

As soon as she could manage it, Edith headed for the garage. Her step was nearly improperly quick. The smile no one saw was knowing and overjoyed. She knew she could not spend too long with Anthony this morning and still avoid questions. But she could at least see him.

The young woman was anxious, almost agitated when she finally met her fiancé in his library. "No. I don't want to sit, Anthony," she told him. "Please. Get your coat and come with me. Let's drive a bit. Sit out on the running board and look off at the world, the way we used to."

He touched her cheek softly to further gauge her mood, and to calm her if he could. She caught his hand and held it to her face before placing her lips softly in his palm.

"I want to kiss you. So very badly. You can't understand," she stammered.

But he could.

Anthony was not an incautious man. Most would think him easily too careful and proper. But truths like that changed when he was with Edith. If he let them.

When she released his hand, he looped his good arm around her, caution gone. He pulled her, lifted her against him, and kissed her hard in answer to everything she had and hadn't said.

They enjoyed their short time together; in all it amounted to less than two hours. They talked only a little. After all, Edith did want to kiss him, as she had said, so very badly. Once they were out on the escarpment, he found it no bother to oblige her.

And Edith found that it was far superior to _stand_ upon the running board than to sit there. She could hold Anthony to her and smile over how she was a little better than his height like this. She could kiss him softly, sweetly, thoroughly as he leant to pin her against the car in a manner that proved both delicious and enticing.

/ / / / / /

The memories of being with him like that didn't make it any easier to be apart the next day. And Edith found it no easier to get away, until she finally finagled a trip two days later that included a stop to see Anthony.

She walked into his library with a happy smile, and it struck him then that she was not at all the worried woman who had approached him months ago. She bent her head to listen for the footman closing the door on his way out behind her; then took that as her signal to step to Anthony. Pressed close to him now, she looked up into his face with a fresh, devilish look that begged to be kissed.

"You've volunteered to run to the station and pick up more deliveries for the wedding?" he asked, in between kisses near her ear.

"Guilty," she told him.

He enjoyed her completely unrepentant use of the word. The woman seemed to welcome all this flirting. And he found he seemed to have warmed to the idea of kissing her quite shamelessly in the library, where they might be walked in upon.

"Thank God I have these errands," she purred.

"Less than a week until Mary's wedding. And then a _month,_ do you think, until we will marry?" he asked, quite seriously. "Have you picked a date?"

She nodded. "But we could manage it sooner, if we were not worried about appearances. You've said there is no problem with the license, and the London vicar can work us in."

"Appearances are a problem either way, I have decided." Slowly his hand slipped further down her back and pulled her tighter to him. They were pressed together quite brazenly now. Quite, she admitted, sexually.

He smiled at the pleased little noise the closeness earned him before he eased them slightly apart. "A prolonged engagement is going to amount to _other_ problems with appearances," he whispered. "Especially if we are constantly locking ourselves away like this."

She backed away from him then, easing out of his hold, so that she could think clearly.

"We shouldn't even be here. We should already be on our honeymoon," she declared, with a certain amount of exasperation. "I apologize for thinking so strangely. But..."

"No. I understand."

"Because, 'In my heart...'" she began.

"Yes, 'In my heart, I am married to you.' It was more than a simple promise or a pledge."

"That, _feeling that_, makes it more difficult to not be together." She blushed. "I don't mean together in that..."

"No. I know," he tried not to laugh over the embarrassment she showed. He felt compelled to whisper his words then, even though they were alone. "I do understand. I didn't want you to think I was eager over the date of the wedding only because I want to take you to bed."

"It is more than inconvenient," she tried to joke. "Being apart feels completely wrong."

Her hand moved to lie heavily on his tie. Her fingertips threatened to work into his shirt, in just that way he had warned her about. A sort of current seemed to run through her, making her feel even more reckless.

He sensed it in her, and it made him desperate for a quiet, undisturbed propinquity. And while he wondered at the sanity of such a suggestion, he told her they should go for a drive right then, just as she had begged for such an outing when they had last been together.

"This is nothing short of insane, Edith. Standing here like this. Let's go. Anywhere." But she wasn't moving. "Edith?"

"This _is_ insane," she told him. Because she didn't just want to fix today by hiding away, or with a drive and a few kisses. She wanted to fix the situation between them entirely. "We could just announce our engagement _tomorrow,_ and put an end to this ridiculousness sooner rather than later. Couldn't we?"

Softly then, Anthony answered her. "We had said we would wait in the hopes that your family would be a little more comfortable with this, once things are calmed down after Mary and Matthew's wedding. You had also wanted to show some deference to them and their plans..." He leant away to read the expression that would come with her answer.

"Yes." It was a reluctantly said word. He could see it, that want in her to still be dutiful. She still carried that long-taught lesson, that she should not be the one who caused raised eyebrows, or was talked about.

He bit his lip, but needed only a moment to consider it. It was a decision made less with his head than with his heart. First came his smile, and then his level voice. "But I do not know that it would hurt the world so very much to please ourselves in this."

He had said the words so gently, as if they were another concession to the world instead of an act against it. In fact, the implication in what he'd said took her by surprise for a moment, it was so placidly stated.

A smile began to work across her face as understanding crept in. "And we would announce things – just to my family – before the wedding?! Then we'd have a small ceremony, even before Mary and Matthew return from their honeymoon?" she asked eagerly.

"Yes."

"Yes?" she asked, still somewhat unbelieving.

"Yes," he told her quite emphatically. "Yes." And he would say it a dozen more times if it pleased her. Just to see that smile.

/ / / / /

Before dinner, Cora brusquely waylaid her daughter as the young woman attempted to pass into the dining room. Edith immediately felt like prey hopelessly cornered. It was a feeling she realized she had blissfully forgotten in that short time in London, when she had felt a part of a different kind of family.

Re-experiencing her mother's hold on her now came as a bitter shock.

"Rosamund has let us know some things about that little impromptu visit of yours to London. Edith, couldn't you, please, promise to keep these impulses contained until after Mary is married. You can't only think of yourself."

The young woman would have replied with a litany of complaints, if anger hadn't completely stolen her breath. But then, her mother had not even lingered long enough to listen to any possible retort.

Between courses, it was a wounded Edith striking back who asked her father if he knew where Anthony had gone. She had not planned on being this childish, on employing this pretense. But a part of her clamored for this one last chance to throw things askew. This one last chance to let her mother think she had got her way in her attempt to get rid of Anthony.

"When I was in the village," Edith said, "I was told Sir Anthony left in quite a hurry about a week ago. At the rail station, they were sure he'd gone north to visit family."

It was a ridiculous story. It would not have stood up at all, were it not for the turmoil the house was in, upstairs and down, over the impending wedding.

"No idea," Robert replied, his attention barely pulled from his wife.

"Really, a week ago?" Cora echoed from her end of the table, as if she were too tired to even feign caring. "And gone north?" She paused for one nearly gloating moment before asking, "You received a letter from James today, didn't you, Edith?"

"Yes, Mother, I did."

And that was all the dinner conversation devoted to topics other than Mary's wedding. But that was fine by Edith. More than fine.


	19. Chapter 19

_**A/N: Sometimes I enjoy something I have written a little too much. This might be one of those things. Maybe it is just that this is proving so much easier to write than that Foyle chapter I owe people. No... I think it is the family fun.**_

_**Do thank dancesabove for insisting I write a bit more if the ending to this chapter tickles your fancy.**_

_**Thank you all for reading and reviewing. I might think these things if I did not have your support. I would not enjoy it so very much, however.**_

* * *

><p>Standing in the dining room the next morning, Edith and her mother discussed Mary's wedding. "James will be here, Edith, won't he? I've written to ask him to stay at the house. But then I am sure that he has told you to expect him for the whole of the weekend. Is it that you just haven't told me? Because Mrs. Hughes will..."<p>

This had all gone too far, Edith suddenly became aware. "Mother," she cut in nervously. "If we could postpone this conversation. There is a complication. Well... as far as I am concerned, it is a pleasant turn of events... but, nonetheless, I think it will make James' stay impossible."

Cora narrowed her eyes. "You are _not_ running off with James before the wedding! You can't do that to us. All these plans are made. What would people say, after all the talk surrounding Sybil?"

"I can assure you," Edith said more calmly as she turned to brush at the curtains, "James and I are _not_ running off together." She bit her lip as she saw Anthony's car approaching. _Thank God for punctual men_, she thought. Summoning a smile that seemed too strained, Edith faced her mother. "And I can also assure you that James will not be attending Mary's wedding."

"Edith? What do you mean? What is going on?!"

"Can we finish this discussion later?" But it was not so much a question as an exit line. The young woman was already headed past her mother and to the door.

Suspicion and shock were written on Cora's face as she followed. She froze in the hallway when Lord Grantham walked towards her.

"We have a situation, dear," she informed her husband, reaching for his sleeve.

His eyes moved from his wife to the escaping form of his daughter. "What is it?" he asked.

"I only wish I knew..."

/ / / / / /

"Anthony!" Edith called out as she walked to the front door.

The dear woman's smile was, her fiancé decided, wavering. And he feared she had less of a taste for trouble and excitement than she thought she had.

It was the couple's good fortune to have Carson there by the door. The butler, with his experience and unflappability, was the best one to deftly help with the injured gentleman's coat and then not bat more than an eyelash at Edith's strange behavior. The Crawleys' middle child closed the distance between herself and their guest, squeezing Anthony's arm and seeming in something of a state.

"Shall I..." Carson began.

"I will take care of Sir Anthony, Carson. Never fear," Edith told him without a look back.

And she leaned in to embrace and kiss her fiancé.

"Edith?" Anthony questioned at the unexpected display. "My love..." he whispered desperately, "what are you doing?"

"I only kissed you on the cheek. And after he had turned away."

"Not that. Really; 'I will take care of Sir Anthony?'"

"Oh, you've read into that, too willingly, I might add. I meant nothing salacious at all by it." She almost pouted, a very un-Edith sort of thing, then blushed. "I may not be thinking clearly just now."

"I'm sorry, Edith. Perhaps I'm unable to hear anything but salacious implications when I look at you. I'll never make it another month; this is madness."

"Exactly. This is all madness. And I must warn you that Henny Penny was right. The sky _is_ falling. But never mind that." She was feeling rushed for time, given what she had set in motion. "Just… forgive me."

"Forgive you?"

They heard her father's raised voice from down the corridor.

"I may have tipped our hand," she whispered.

"I had thought we were going to talk with your parents _together,_ once I arrived," he stressed.

"My mother was all but selling me off to Doctor Grant a few minutes ago, and so I may have disclosed that I was counting on having a different escort." Her voice was getting higher, even a bit shrill.

"_May_ have?" he said with a soft, but telling, disbelief.

….

Robert hailed them again. And once greetings had been exchanged, Lord Grantham apologized to Anthony quickly, but politely, for any appearance of mayhem in the house. Mary and Matthew's impending wedding was causing quite the commotion, he explained. "In fact," Robert added then to Edith in his soothing tone, "your mother seems upset by something, Edith, with regard to wedding guests, I believe. Do go settle that. And the sooner the better."

"Oh. I will go sort things out with her," Edith assured her father, quickly and even genially. "But I think Sir Anthony has something to discuss with _you,_ if you have a moment. Am I right, Sir Anthony?"

"Yes. You are. Thank you," he answered too formally.

"We'll step into the library, then," Robert said.

"This upcoming wedding is quite the event..." Sir Anthony began as he followed the man in.

"Yes. It is far more... involved than I would have thought. It has completely taken over the workings of the house. But that can't be why you needed to speak with me."

"Not exactly," Anthony said, with an apologetic look. "But with all of this commotion, well... it has been difficult to know how to approach our plans."

"Our plans?" Robert asked, quite confused.

"Sorry. Yes, the plans. Edith's and mine. Your daughter has consented to marry me, and she is looking to avoid any similar commotion and lengthy engagement... for us."

"You two want to _marry_?" Robert asked, still a full step behind in the conversation.

"Yes. But in a much smaller fashion. A London wedding in four weeks. Or as few as two," Anthony said in a surprisingly calm, confident fashion.

"London?" Lord Grantham echoed, shaking his head.

"We mean to live there immediately after," Anthony said by way of explanation. The taller man narrowed his eyes at his prospective father-in-law, as if to assess his understanding. "Research into defense has not stopped with the end of the war, and Whitehall is only too glad to have me back. Even if it is only part-time and on my terms."

"I will admit that I am a tad blindsided." Robert's eyebrows inched up and stayed rather high.

Levelly, Anthony told him, "I find I can't deny her."

"That can't be the way to live your life, certainly."

"Oh, I have no trouble upsetting anyone else," he said quite pointedly. "But not Edith."

"But you will marry in London? And live there. _Work_ there?" Robert asked, unbelieving. "It is all settled, even as _we_ are just hearing all of this?"

"Yes. If there is an objection..."

"I hardly know." At this point in the conversation, Lord Grantham betrayed his exasperation by sinking into his chair.

"You are taken by surprise, perhaps, because you were not aware of the attachment we'd developed?"

"Let's leave it at that, yes."

Anthony only smiled in reply, but with an expression of uncommon glee and satisfaction that left Robert further unsettled.

"Anthony, you are content to turn the running of your estate over to a manager? Truly?"

"Yes. Summers will be here, I suspect."

"Summers?"

"When school is not in term. Edith is starting a course of study. Engineering. Not _quite _the topic I would have chosen for a young lady..." There was an accepting shrug.

"But you find you cannot deny her anything," Robert echoed, dumbfounded.

"Just so. She's become inexplicably obsessed with devising some sort of automatic transmission for vehicles. Secretly, I don't think that interest will hold."

"No?" the confused-sounding man ventured.

Anthony looked reflective. "I think she would prefer to work with smaller devices, designing things, mechanically... so that ordinary devices can be adapted to help people with... infirmities."

Robert's mouth gaped a moment or two in response to that disclosure.

"I'd best fetch my wife," he stumbled.

… … ...

Edith and her father passed awkwardly in the doorway as if players in some horrible rushed scene change in a second-rate theatre.

"What did you tell him?" Edith led off as she approached Anthony.

"Just our plans," he answered.

"My father looked horribly red about the face, which is how my mother looked after I told her we were getting married and embarrassingly soon."

"And _you_ look too pleased about that," Anthony pretended to scold. "I simply told your father that I would not deny you your wishes. That quite obviously I was ridiculously powerless to resist you. I apologized that the wedding would be soon. And told him that we would live in London, but be in the country for summers."

"You told him _all_ that?"

"Indeed," Anthony said proudly.

That behind them, Edith assessed how happy she was, merely to be in the same room with him again. Her hand smoothed down his lapel as if to fix it, but there was nothing wrong with the garment. "It's been too long since I've seen you."

"It has only been since yesterday morning."

"Only?" she asked, seeming disappointed with his answer.

"All right. I confess, I felt it as well, that missing you." He placed a kiss on her forehead.

"Then will you deny me something I have fantasized about for months?"

"Edith," he warned, knowing that tone of hers. "Perhaps this is a conversation we should have at a different time... and in a different venue."

"I just want to sit in your lap," she whispered. "I want you to pull me down. Hold me close and just adore me. I used to think about that when we were driving."

"My lap?" He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

The tease from him was unexpected.

"Anthony. Stop!" she told him with a blush. She grasped his lapels and gave him a little shake.

"I do believe you started this," he said, with an impish grin of victory.

"Will you, then? Let me?" she asked as she smoothed his cheek.

"When your parents or _someone_ will most likely burst in any moment?" He managed to make it sound as if he was objecting, but he was already leading her to the couch.

"It will take my father at least 20 minutes to calm down my mother," Edith assured him.

His arm snaked around her waist quite possessively. "Come here, then," he told her, and he guided her to sit across his lap at last.

She squealed quite happily.

"We are making a ridiculous display," he told her, after mere seconds like that. "Someone will no doubt walk in… so get up, my dear," he told her with a light swat to her bum. "And later, when we are safely married, there can be whole hours spent like this."

She was struggling to comply. Her feet were back on the ground, but she was not quite upright just yet. And Anthony was little help, with only one working arm. It was then that Mary walked in. Followed by Cora and Robert.

"Edith? Are you unwell?" her mother asked her, pointedly.

"She was a bit unsteady on her feet, but she's better now," Anthony tried, as he rose to meet his hosts.

"And you fell in his lap?" the observant Mary asked archly.

"Oh, please," Edith whined as she came up beside Mary. "We've had dinner guests laid out by right hooks in this room. If I should have a... funny turn and sit a tad too close to my fiancé, where is the harm?"

"Yes," Robert muttered to himself. "Good behavior has come to be merely a comparative thing around here."

"Forget good behavior..." Cora began.

"Of course, the American would say that," Robert grumbled as he took a seat.

Carson saved the conversation from any further descent and disassembling when he entered to announce the Dowager Countess.

Sensing the impasse the family had reached, Edith decided to launch the group past it and secure her escape as well.

"Granny," she called out. "Lovely news." Edith paused while she watched her grandmother crane her neck in every direction to assess what might _really_ be happening.

"Dare I ask?" the old woman croaked, a hand to her chest.

"Anthony and I are getting married. Isn't that wonderful?"

"Do I have to answer right now? I can scarcely breathe!" was the reply she got.

"No," Edith announced happily, tugging lightly at her fiancé's hand. "Tell us later. We are going for a drive. A long one."

Anthony's words as he disappeared through the door were a well-timed, "Good day, all. It's been..."

/


	20. Chapter 20

**_A/N: Oh my! We are soooooo close. Thanks so much. I hope this goes over well. _**

* * *

><p>At Mary's wedding reception, Edith surreptiously caught at the back of Anthony's coat. He turned from the couple he'd been speaking to and met his fiancée with an open, happy smile. He took up her hand and kissed it quickly.<p>

The pair did not know it, but they were being observed from across the room. "I don't remember him being so personable," Violet whispered from behind her fan.

"Because he wasn't," Cora declared.

"Really, I give up," Robert muttered, from his spot at his mother's elbow. "I am going to see to the other guests." But he didn't make it away from their group.

"You mean you have just _that_ quickly come to peace with this?" his mother asked as her fan hooked him back in.

"Yes. Years ago it was something else." He shook his head and carried on quietly. "I did worry then. I thought Edith was 'settling.' That she had weighed the world and its prospects and found her options sadly wanting. That Anthony became a best option. Rather calculatingly so."

"But that isn't what it _is,_ you are trying to tell me? _Now_, I mean," his confused wife asked.

Robert actually chuckled. "If I have to tell you, it does no good, Cora. You should be able to see it."

"But they are such a strange pair," Violet objected, her voice wavering with sadness rather than outright disapproval.

"They are, both of them, something other than ordinary. Something _more_ than ordinary, we should all admit. And they are most certainly a _pair_," the young woman's father assessed. "You would do well to drop the bitterness, both of you."

At least one more complaint resided in Cora. "She made a fool of me, making me think she was going to marry James."

"You rather asked that she do that," Robert said with a ghost of a laugh. "The rarest things are not easily understood. But they are to be appreciated."

"It's as if you are channeling some dead fakir or second-rate poet, Robert. Please stop it," his mother requested drolly.

"Yes. I shall." He nodded to mark his exit from the conversation, then backed away quite formally.

Cora and her mother-in-law continued their examination of the newly engaged pair, only slightly dampened by Robert's take on things. "And when did Anthony start wearing his hair like… that? Those unruly bits of hair coming down..." the dowager countess said, with a frustrated motion of her hand around her head.

"My biggest fear," her daughter-in-law countered, sounding quite scandalized, "is that he does not start out the day like that. That perhaps, he has someone _doing_ that to his hair."

"Oh! Dear God. I had not considered that. This is a great deal more worrisome than I had thought."

"Yes. And then there is that regrettable habit Edith has developed. Have you seen her?" Cora asked.

"Seen her _what_?!" a worried Violet demanded.

"She looks at him and she... bites her lip."

"She does?" The dowager countess shook her head slowly, the fight gone from her. "Well. That sinks it. We all put up with you doing that over Robert. We all took it to mean you were... well, there is no polite way to phrase this. Perhaps, 'over the moon.'"

The younger woman turned quickly to confront that accusation. "Impossible. I did no such thing."

"Impossible? Ha! But at least you were married at the time. I would have thought this whole thing with Edith _was_ impossible, yes. She used to be so eager to please. By which I mean to please _us_. But we shall have to admit it has happened, if she is to the point of mooning over Anthony in that sort of fashion. Just be glad they are getting married sooner rather than later, before things get too embarrassing."

"I don't like us all being rushed."

"It's like one of those horrible American moving pictures," the elder woman declared. "They change how people see things like marriage and family. Frightening, really. But if we carry on against this anymore, _we_ become the nasty villains and they, the love-struck heroes."

"Oh, that's too much."

Violet sighed in sympathy. "It certainly is. So, my new advice is to let them be married as soon as they wish. Please, get them out of public. If what you tell me is true, they must be nearly past the point of behaving at all properly. Offer to pay for their honeymoon. A month. Anywhere," she said with a wave of her hand. "_He_ does not look like he is worried about outdoor scenery. _She_ will not be writing you from their trip, worried that she's forgotten her walking gloves." The look she shot her daughter-in-law was all too knowing. Violet was clearly picturing a honeymoon spent indoors with late breakfasts... and as unlikely as this development was, the message she was trying to communicate was that there was no point in denying reality any longer.

"I'm going to talk with him. Let him know we do not at all oppose their plans, but that we do suggest he relocate to London … tomorrow. And that Edith will be up the day before the wedding." Cora was sure this was over-reaching. Certainly this odd pair could be expected to behave in a non-embarrassing manner, lip-biting aside. And so Cora looked at Violet before she concluded. "Do you think it really necessary? That Anthony wait in London?"

"I think it imperative," her mother-in-law fairly squeaked.

Cora began to circle the wedding guests then, an eye to being able to interrupt Anthony and Edith at an opportune time.

As the gentleman with whom the couple had been speaking made his excuses and slid away, Cora worked nearer. Already the pair was huddled closer together, sharing some secret. And before Lady Grantham could lay a hand to Edith's wrist, the odd word she heard her daughter giggle to Anthony was 'traitor.'

_Imperative_, Cora thought.

...

Lady Grantham asked that Edith go chat with the vicar, who was standing conspicuously on his own a short way off. Luckily the younger woman was merely curious rather than wary over such a request at this point. So she indeed left her mother alone with her fiancé.

Anthony was obviously curious too, as Edith heard him quickly ask Cora, "Was there something you needed to speak with me about?"

Cora hurried through her polite suggestion that Anthony might have much to ready in London before any wedding. Before Anthony could answer, Edith sidled up on the one side of her mother, and Carson approached the group with a tell-tale worried look.

"What is it?" Lady Grantham whispered, knowing there was bad news.

The butler bent his head towards hers to speak confidentially. "It's Mrs. Harcourt, my lady. She's fallen, and..."

"Oh, she has had _twice_ the drinks a sailor might today..." Cora said, with no small amount of exasperation.

Carson did not deny this, and he did have a touch of that long-suffering look about him that brought him favor with Mrs. Hughes, if no one else. "It's her elbow. We've put her in one of the bedrooms, but..."

Edith and Anthony could not help but overhear. "Let me take the car and get Doctor Clarkson, mother. Please. I'd like to help." Edith offered.

"Certainly that new fellow, Baker, could go," her mother supplied.

"He is taking Mr. Irwin to the rail station, I'm afraid, Ma'am."

Cora groaned. "All right then, Edith."

Her mother had not thought about the outcome that Anthony would leave along with Edith. But when it did happen, her thinking had changed enough that she acknowledged to herself that the pair disappearing together had been inevitable.

… … ...

Once back with Clarkson, Edith and Anthony did not merely return the car to the garage. No, they decided the reception seemed well enough over; that they might make their escape.

"We aren't going back in?" he questioned, teasingly. He certainly knew they weren't, as they were to the road already. And he certainly did not care.

"I had thought that you wanted me to drive you home. I didn't misunderstand, did I?" Her acting was terribly unconvincing.

He chuckled. "You are headed in completely the wrong direction if you are taking me home."

"Oh. Sorry." The smile on her face looked almost painful as she tried to conceal it better. "Ripon, then? There is that hotel I've heard is quite nice. The Rose Inn. They do a lovely breakfast."

"Edith," he warned with a touch of gravel to his voice.

She laughed and instead drove them to the same escarpment where they had spent time on most of their previous drives.

"It needs to be two weeks. Not a month, Anthony," she said, omitting the unnecessary explanation as she set the parking brake.

"We have told your family. Mine, what there is of it." He stopped then, confused as he watched her get out of the car and open the door to the back seat. "Edith?"

"Come sit back here with me, darling. Please. I can't even sit near you properly, with the gear shift and everything up there."

"I can't believe there will be anything _proper_ in having us together in the back seat."

He doubted the sanity of it all, but still complied. After all, the man thought as he watched her derriere disappear into the car, sanity seemed highly overrated lately.

… … …

A short time later, Edith was forced to admit she was wrong. The roof of the car was not high enough to allow her to sit in his lap. There was a great deal of disappointment and perhaps, he thought, frustration in her voice as she shifted to sit beside him.

As his hand made a slow, conciliatory trip up from the hem of her dress to the warm top of her thighs, she seemed much happier. A low hum escaped him then as he surveyed the length of her.

Her squirming in the back seat and the heaving of her breath had left her breasts even more exposed than the daring cut of her dress had intended. And, leaning closer, he took full advantage of that.

Anthony had barely begun to touch her in earnest when her voice changed to urgent and pleading. He stopping teasing at her breasts to look at her, but he needn't have, because he had known what he would see.

And he knew what that look meant. Knew how easy it would be to answer and appease it.

So he did arouse and appease her, while she pulled ever more harshly at his coat.

The words she gave up at last were thick, but sated. Her hold on him gradually, gradually slackened. "Oh, Anthony."

"Right here, love."

"Oh, you certainly are, Anthony. Just right. Here."


	21. Chapter 21

_Love to all! Thank you so very much for sticking with me and our pair. I started this story as a bit of therapy, I think. And here we are, last day with the therapists! Go Team!_

_This is the last chapter. A sort of epilogue, really. It pains me to let these two go. But I did swear that I would have this done before the third season/series aired here in the states. _

_In my mind I heard the word 'computer' where you read 'typewriter' below. :) _

_Thanks to dancesabove for the talent and the time._

* * *

><p>"Anthony? Anthony!" The tone was lightly complaining. He looked up from the typewriter at last. "Come walk with me," his wife said. "Or maybe we could go for a drive..."<p>

He smiled suspiciously and pushed his chair back from the table. "And sit on the running board, like we used to?" he teased. "Or something a little more..."

"Anthony!" she scolded. "You know, I'm the one who recommended that typewriter, all those years ago. I can see to it that it disappears."

"Oh, darling," he said, in a tone so conciliatory that she came over to kiss him on the head. "You were very, _very_ happy with me this morning. I hate to see that stop." He smiled at her and raised his eyebrows in a way that invited her to remember the sleepy love-making she had initiated.

_._

_It had been just barely light out when she had placed her arm across him and pulled closer, only half awake. With his encouragement she had moved atop him. Her elbows took her weight then, and her hair fell to tickle his neck._

"_Will you, Edith?" he'd asked, his voice still heavy with sleep. "Will you make love to me?"_

_._

Standing there and replaying all of that, she pulled in close to him as he looked up at her, her hip snug against his shoulder. The way she petted at him seemed to signal that she doubted there would be any interruption.

"Where are the children?" Anthony asked at last, his voice a happy, intimate whisper.

"Outside," she answered, motioning toward the window.

From their spot by the desk they could look out on the wide expanse of lawn. In the distance there were three figures. Two small; one fully grown. "The children could have a proper nanny if we were in London," he mused. "We needn't have them running about after Joseph, constructing windmills and rebuilding engines."

"The windmills were your idea," she reminded him.

"Ah. Point taken. But do you see _my_ point?"

"I'm not sure I do." She showed him that she had set aside her request that he come for a walk or a drive by settling herself in his lap.

He helped her get comfortable there, even looping his arm around her and kissing her quickly.

"The point is London. We are spending more time there than I thought we would, with your schooling over. But do we _want_ to spend more time there?" he said at last.

"You are worried about the children?"

He thought it was sarcasm and opened his mouth to complain. But she silenced him with her fingers to his lips and said softly, "They shan't be building windmills anymore if we spend all our time in town. And is that what we want? Is that what you mean?"

"Yes... although there is also the overall fear that I let them run wild when we are here."

"I won't have you shoulder the blame for that one. Certainly, as their mother, everyone blames me," she quipped.

"I was just so _happy_ when Elizabeth was born," he said, by way of explaining how he came to be so easily wrapped around his daughter's finger. "And then to have a son…" He was a little emotional over the whole thing. "Even now. I can't say no to them."

"We have all noticed. You don't say no to me, either."

"But I have worried. Am I depriving you of something more that you've wanted? To run a place like this? To act more the lady of the manor, with your house parties?"

"I've never thought that alone would satisfy. Never expected..."

"Oh, dear God, that reminds me! A message came." Anthony worked to pat at his pockets, but with her in his lap and only the one hand, he was having no luck finding it.

Not even waiting to see if he would be able to produce the paper, Edith put her hand first in one of his pockets and then in another.

"You have to stop that," he chided amiably as he grabbed her wrist. "You do know that you have the children doing that now - rifling through my pockets whether I am capable of retrieving something myself or not." Edith snickered a little as he continued to feign scolding her. "Your mother has found this quite distressing when she has witnessed it," her husband said, trying not to lapse into laughter himself. "And I am beginning to feel I am being assailed by second-rate pickpockets."

"Poor Anthony," Edith murmured as she leaned down to kiss him. "Put your hands in my pockets and we will call it even."

It surprised them no end when the door to the study began to open.

Being long accustomed to the couple's loving distraction (for lack of a better phrase), Lawrence was used to entering a room at a glacial pace and with excessive noise.

Still the pair did not manage to get Edith to her feet before Mary was announced.

"No. Don't tell me. You had a bit of a funny turn and fell into his lap," the elder woman said, only pretending to be appalled. "After years of that happening, you should likely ask Dr. Clarkson what causes it."

"We have it narrowed down to one or two likely causes," Anthony said as he pretended to straighten up his desk.

"Really," Mary answered with a well-timed roll of her eyes. "I could narrow it to one. Now, tell me you received Mother's invitation to dinner, and I will leave you to it. I wouldn't barge in, but dear Mama is worried about the short notice and asked that I check with you."

"It's here somewhere," Edith replied. She eyed Anthony's pockets and stepped closer to him again, as if to start her search of his person anew.

"I'll find it." The man's words were quite obviously a warning to his wife that she should keep her hands off him.

"Yes, do, Anthony," Mary teased. "Or I'll let my niece and nephew know that you've misplaced it, and _they_ will turn your pockets out next."

Although Edith and Anthony had grown accustomed to a more genial and accepting Mary, they were fairly paralyzed by _that _comment.

"Oh, good heavens, what faces! Do recover so you can write this down. This Sunday. After church. Bring the children, so that the cousins can play havoc with Carson and Mrs. Hughes downstairs."

And as a laughing Mary walked for the door, she heard Edith exclaim, "Now, where might I find a pencil...?"

And the less-than-serious protestation, "Don't you dare, woman!"


End file.
